I had my big blowout Saturday. Cooked two six-pound pork butts overnight, then did a brisket flat, three racks of ribs, two beer can chickens, about a dozen sausages and a can of SPAM. The butts, brisket and sausages were done on a WSM and the others were done on a barrel grill that was set up for offset cooking.
Things varied from damn good to AWESOME. Cooking notes:
---Put on the butts at 11 p.m. with the Minion Method and took them off at 2:30 p.m. the next day. Foiled them, wrapped them in towels, dropped them in a cooler where they were still PLENTY hot when I pulled them nearly four hours later! They were fall-apart wonderful.
--I put the flat on at 7 a.m. and started getting worried at 3 p.m. that it wouldn't get done in time (internal temp was around 155). Foiled it, tossed it on the grill and finished it in a couple of hours with no problem. Held it an hour in the cooler and sliced it up. Tender, juicy, universally loved!
---Did two variations on beer-can chicken...one with beer, and the other with mojo criollo (a bitter orange and garlic marinade usually available in the Hispanic food area of your store). They were AWESOME and I liked the mojo one a little better.
---Ribs came out OK to good...not a lot of flavor, for whatever reason, but very tender. Gotta try some on my new WSM instead of using the barrel cooker, which takes a lot of maintenance to keep at a reasonably steady temp.
---SPAM was fun to cook but developed a weird, tough skin in smoking. I tasted a slice and it tasted just like SPAM...nothing particularly special. Probably would have been better to slice and grill it instead of smoking the chunk whole. I basically cooked it as a joke, though, so I'm not sure I would have liked to get that involved.
---I had two kinds of sausage: Some cheap 'Virginia links,' which are a sort of mild version of Texas hot links, and some relatively expensive chicken-apple sausages. The quality difference was obvious and the chicken-apple sausages were really good. The Virginia links were poor and I won't buy them again.
This was about 43 pounds of meat (before cooking)for 30 people and they damn near ate it all! I had a little bit of brisket and pulled pork left over, perhaps 10 ribs, and the Virginia sausage and SPAM. I've already eaten the rest of the leftover pulled pork and most of the brisket. My wife has DEMANDED that I make her more pulled pork this weekend, and I live to serve!
Also made a mustard sauce that was well-received. It was easy -- equal parts yellow mustard, apple cider vinegar and brown sugar, heated until thickened. I then threw in some black pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. It really went well with the pork.
Good cookout!
