Solstice 2007
After trucking around trying to assemble everything, I came up with the following:
a 21 pound hog leg, bone in, skin on.
an 8.2 pound bison brisket
Two, 3-4 or so pound bison hump roasts
goat shoulder roast
goat leg roast
2 racks of goat ribs
4 racks of back ribs
6 racks spareribs
1 rabbit, around 4 pounds.
12 pounds drumsticks and thighs of chicken
Preparations began on the tuesday before the smoke, by putting the hog leg into flavor brine.
On thursday, I began defrosting the bison and goat. Friday came, and the goat and rabbit went into the same brine as the pork.
I made a spicy cabbage salad as a side, and my friend Roger read the VWB instructions on trimming ribs, and took on this task for me. Roger got the membranes better than I did, but on the spareribs, had problems getting the line between rib tip and rib, so I cut those off.
I made a rub with cayenne, kosher salt, demarera sugar, 5 spice and coarse black pepper. All of the baby backs were dry-rubbed, wrapped in saran wrap, and popped in the fridge. I dry rubbed one of the sparerib racks, and for the other four, marinated in one of the BBQ sauces that I had purchased from carolina sauce company.
The spareribs didn't fit the saran wrap well, so I put them in foil and stacked in the fridge.
I trimmed the buffalo, and my friend jeff figured out the larding needle, and injected them with pork back fat. He also larded the bison brisket. I jerked the brisket and one of the hump roasts. The other hump roast went into a balsamic marinade.
I made my classic chicken marinade-- white vinegar, frank's red hot, tabasco, coarse black pepper, and a touch of soy. All chicken went into ziplocs.
At 3 PM, I topped off the coal ring with kingsford, hid a number of chunks of hickory in there, and lit 20 coals. when the temp seemed to stabalize, it was at 240 read by a candy thermometer, but it wasn't the one I'm used to, that one was stolen. The nu-temp on the grill read 250. this was with top vent open, all three on bottom closed. I will say that it was a bit more unlit coal that I usually use. But I was also starting earlier than usual do to the large size of the hog leg. I was shooting for 30 hours instead of 24 for a smaller hog leg. Around 8PM, the temperature started taking off, I guess the 20 coals that had gone in really got down into the pile. With all vents closed, it still got up to 320F. My bullet is old and beat up, and the vent closures leak some air. I put the door from one of the newer bullets on there, and hoped that it would stabilize. By around 2AM, it was back below 250. Given the fat pad on the hog leg, I was thinking that the temperature excursion wouldn’t do too much damage.
I went to bed around 5AM, was up at 9AM, and it was still holding at 240.
I fired up the other two bullets using the minion, with a more normal charcoal load in the ring, but with about 10 coals each. In about 40 minutes, they had come up to 225, so the rabbits, back ribs, and goat went on. I checked the fuel in the first bullet, and it was getting pretty scarce. So I took the middle section off, and added coals on top of the ones that were nearly spent. I ran the bottom vents wide open for 20 minutes, then shut everything down and put the bison brisket on. Temperature ran up to about 270. The buffalo brisket seemed to be cooking very fast for coming straight out of the fridge. I had one of the nu-temp probes in the flat of the brisket. I soon moved it over to the cooler of the other two bullets, both of which were running with the top vents open and one of the bottoms 1/3 open. I put spareribs under the pork butt on the first bullet. The second bullet had two goat roasts on the bottom level and rabbit and spareribs on top. The third bullet just had the 4 racks of back ribs.
Rabbit and both goat roasts were wrapped in bacon. Bison hump went on at this time. I decided to reserve one hump roast to see how the first one was doing.
The rabbit cooked quickly, but I expected that and have done many a leporid in my time. So it was first off, when few folks arrived. The bison cooked very quickly, and I pulled both the brisket and hump roast quite soon, and let them sit in braising fluid for several hours. The hump roast recovered nicely. Most of the brisket remained inedible. There was a long blur of me pulling off pieces of meat, letting them rest, and prepping them. In the past, I used to just throw them out on the table, but I decided to take the time and prep them correctly this year. I used a braising fluid for the goat ribs, which were among the best that I’ve ever made. Most ribs were slathered in Carolina BBQ sauce while they rested. I also reserved some of the pulled pork to chop and mix with Carolina Treet BBQ sauce to put out with buns.
Rib tips went on around 6PM for a late night snack.
Roger fired up the grill and cooked most of the chicken up, which was quite good, as well as the skirt pieces from the ribs.
Here’s the summary. I’m guessing at the times for some of the ribs, since I didn’t write them all down. The other times were written on the dry erase board.
Meat Wood Time on Time off Notes
Hog leg Hickory 3PM friday 7:45 PM Brined 5 days. Taken out of fridge at 5AM to come to room temp. Pulled pork achieved after resting 30 minutes. A couple of people thought that it was a little dry. Perhaps it was because I pulled off the fatty pieces on the cutting board, so it dried on the table a bit. I’ll leave the fat on next year. Temperature excursions Friday night and Saturday morning.
Rabbit Alder 10AM 3:00PM This is the best rabbit I’ve ever made. There were two differences. I don’t think I’d ever used alder before, which went really well, and I normally put them in my poultry brine, but used the sweeter pork brine this time. No rub or anything, just wrap in bacon, foil for 15 min to rest.
Bison Hump Alder 11:30AM 2:30PM Jerked with walker’s wood jerk. 150 internal temp when I pulled it. 4 hours in braising fluid, 40 minutes on a 225 grill in the foil and braising fluid, slice thin. Tasted very good, a touch dry. The pork fat didn’t seem to render much, as you could see the larding as circles in each slice of meat.
Bison brisket Hickory, then Alder 10:00AM 2:00PM Jerked. 155 internal temp when pulled. 7 hours in braising fluid in my oven on lowest setting. Didn’t really save most of it. Maybe 40% was edible if sliced thin.
Spareribs 1 Alder 11:15AM 5:00PM Marinated overnight in Jim’s Homemade Hot Carolina BBQ sauce. Slathered in sauce when pulled, Wrapped in foil to rest 15 min. These first two racks were pulled a little too early. They passed the pull test and certainly weren’t tough, but I like them more tender than what is considered standard at BBQ competitions. Jim’s homemade sauce is a little sweeter than many eastern Carolina BBQ sauces. I didn’t care for it so much on the ribs. Too bad I bought the big jar.
Spareribs 2 Alder 11:15AM 5:15PM Marinated overnight in Rumboggles Hot S. Carolina mustard sauce. Slathered in same when pulled. 15 min in foil. See above comments on the tenderness of the ribs. The mustard sauce turned out to be a favorite both with me and partygoers.
Spareribs 3 Hickory 11:15AM 9:00PM Marinated overnight in Scorned Woman BBQ sauce. Slathered in same sauce when pulled. 15 min in foil. The scorned woman wasn’t a favorite at the sauce testing on Friday night, as it’s very sweet, but on smokey, cooked ribs, it turns out to be pretty good, and packs some nice heat. By 9:00, the ribs were right where I like them as far as tenderness.
Spareribs 4 Hickory 11:15AM 10:00PM Marinated overnight in Mel’s Carolina BBQ sauce. Slathered in same and 15 min in foil. Mel’s is better than jim’s, and certainly will make another appearance at a rib fest. Though I’m not sure that I’ll order it again. Tenderness on the ribs hadn’t really changed much, and by now, the temp was dropping to around 200. I threw on a touch more smoke wood.
Spareribs 5 Hickory 11:15AM 11:00PM Dry Rubbed. Served with Dry rub only. Now it seemed like they were falling off the bone a bit more. Smoke flavor really came through without sauce.
Spareribs 6 Hickory 11:15AM 12:00AM Marinated overnight in Carolina Cupboard BBQ sauce. Slathered in the mustard sauce. About as tender as rack #5.
Backribs 1 Alder 10:00AM 5:00PM Dry rubbed at ~9PM Friday, overnight in fridge wrapped in saran wrap. I slathered in a S. Carolina style mustard sauce. These were spot on. The meat wasn’t falling off the bone, but would pull right off and definitely more tender than what’s considered normal at BBQ competitions.
Backribs 2 Alder 10:00AM 5:45PM Dry rubbed at ~9PM Friday overnight in fridge wrapped in saran wrap. Served with dry rub only. These were already starting to fall off the bone. The smoke flavor really comes through without the extra sauce. I like alder a bit more for ribs, but for hog leg, it’s got to be Hickory.
Backribs 3 Alder 10:00AM 7:30PM Dry rubbed at ~9PM Friday overnight in fridge wrapped in saran wrap. Slathered in Carolina Treet BBQ sauce, then foil for 15 min. One of my friends who has been to almost every solstice party said these were the best ribs that he’s ever had. They were a little more crumbly than I usually go for. More like the ribs you get from a pig pickin’. But the Carolina treet BBQ sauce is awesome, and went perfectly with the heavier smoke.
Backribs 4 Alder 10:00AM 7:30PM Dry rubbed at ~9PM Friday overnight in fridge wrapped in saran wrap. Slathered in Dillard’s BBQ sauce, wrapped in foil 15 min. Dillard’s was my favorite BBQ joint when I lived in NC, and my mom used to mail me bottles of the sauce. It’s still good, but I think that Carolina Treet does that style (with a touch of tomato) a little better.
Goat ribs (back) Alder 10:30AM 5:00PM Brined about 24 hours. No other rubs. Braising liquid was poured over them into the foil container, and they rested 30 minutes. These were still a little on the chewy side. I’ve never done better on a goat rib, so that may just be the nature of the beast. ****in’ tasty, though. I think with the higher quality goat, the alder instead of hickory, and the pork brine all led to the best goat rib I’ve ever cooked.
Goat ribs (shoulder) Alder 10:30AM 6:45PM I was wrong. This was the best goat rib I’ve ever cooked. The extra time, and the extra meatiness of the shoulder ribs led to one fine rib. Still a touch chewy, but I also did a lot better than usual getting that damn membrane off. You think the pork rib membrane is a *****? Try cleaning a goat rib. I didn’t rub these either, but I did put some mustard sauce on the one I took. That was a match made in heaven.
Goat leg Alder 10:30AM 10:00PM Brined, wrapped in bacon. Rest in foil 30 minutes. I didn’t realize that this was boneless, or I would have pulled it sooner. I wish the bone was in, actually, as I think a lot of what helps one get pulled goat comes from the bone. I should have realized it was boneless when it was in netting. It didn’t dry out, and the flavor was wonderful. The goat leg I made last year pulled and was perfect. I think I may have to buy some goat from the halal place. The higher quality goat may just not have the connective tissue to pull.
Goat shoulder roast Alder 10:30AM 6:00PM `This cut had more of the connective tissue, and I should have reversed the order in which I took them off the grill. This was very flavorful. No rubs or anything, just cook and let rest. It had the bone-in.
Rib tips Alder 6:00PM 1:00AM These were marinated in leftover chicken sauce overnight (as were the skirt parts of the ribs) The smoke wood was pretty much gone by the time these were cooking. They were still chewy, but the straggling drunks who were left still ate every last morsel. I’ve never done rib tips separately before, I usually cut them off after cooking with the spareribs. I will cut them off in prep from now on.
Thoughts and Lessons learned: I think I spent $700 to put the party together. I got less than $100 in keg donations, which was less than half of what it cost to buy the first keg of beer (Elysian IPA). I think people are getting a whole lot more bulk ribs next year, since they seemed to like those the best anyhow.
I will not try to smoke buffalo in the future. I had to give it a try, and I learned my lesson. I actually have the other hump roast in the crock pot right now for a bison stew, the smell of which is driving me crazy. I do want to make bison carpaccio.
The vendors I used for this were all great, with particular shout outs to elkusa.com and the Carolina sauce company. I’ve never made so many ribs at once, and trying out the various styles taught me a lot. I usually go for the cheaper spareribs, but they do take longer, so I may opt for the baby backs for shorter applications.
I need to fix my smoker. The bottom vents have been rebent back into shape so long that they just don’t provide a good air seal, but they are riveted in and that’s going to be a ***** to fix. I was able to control the temp spot-on in the newer bullets, but mine was a lumbering beast compared to those.
Misc recipes:
Cabbage salad
1 head red cabbage, chopped
1 head green cabbage, chopped
1 jar claussen pickles, cubed.
1 jar green tomatoes
1 pound carrots, peeled. Then the carrots are peeled into strips and chopped up.
1 head garlic, minced.
Mustard powder
Black pepper
Soy sauce
Red wine vinegar
Balsamic vinegar
Tabasco
Mix the veggies, use the other ingredients to prepare a dressing. Dress the salad and mix – I use a giant Tupperware. Salad is best after about a month, as it starts to pickle.
Dry rub:
Fancy sugar (demarera? I don’t remember)
5 spice
Cayenne
Hungarian paprika
Turmeric
Black pepper
Kosher salt
The sugar and cayenne go in at a 1:1 ratio. I use about a fourth as much of all other ingredients as the amount of sugar. Mix and rub.
Braising fluid:
Unsalted butter
Fancy organic low-salt beef stock
Melt the butter. Eyeball the amount of liquid butter. Add three times that amount of beef stock.
I don’t know what the featured meat will be next year. I want to do something that I can smoke that’s weird, like camel was. Maybe I’ll try to track down mutton. The leg is supposed to have more connective tissue and be more amenable to low and slow. My project for the year is to buy more Carolina Treet BBQ sauce and figure out how to replicate the recipe, or else I’ll be spending a ****load of money on it in the future.
