Saturday Shindig

[Chuck Bench]

So my mom and dad are coming up from Charleston first thing tomorrow morning (they should be right around the corner when we wake up). I asked my dad if he wanted some BBQ when he came up and he said of course lol. So a couple of days ago I defrosted 2 - 10.5 LB butts. Figured if I'm going to have the smoker going might as well put some BBQ in the freezer for later.

Well, I was thinking about it and figured hell I'll make it a real party with all the fix-ins. So, I went to the grocery store and 50 dollars later left out of there to make tomorrow something special.

I bought enough goods to make some killer cowboy beans, creamy potato salad, and kickass coleslaw. I've already made the potato salad and coleslaw. The beans are soaking for the cowboy beans.

I still have to make the injection for the butts and the glaze. I'll get that done later tonight. Also, it's going to be an overnight cook. Figured I'd put the butts on at midnight and give my new Stoker a good test run and see how it does.

I'm relaxing now. I'll get up in a little while and take some pictures of what I've done so far

 

[James Lake]

Nicely done Chuck....I don't need to check mapquest to know that I can't get to your place in time for the party. I bet your parents are going to be really proud of you feeding them such a fine spread. I can't wait to see all of the pictures. Me....I will be working a beer tent at a local BBQ comp so no big cook for me this weekend.

 

[Cliff Bartlett]

Sounds great Chuck. That is going to be a feast!

 

[Tony R]

Look forward to this cook.

 

[Chuck Bench]

thanks fellas...this is kind of a preliminary run for 4th of July...We'll be throwing a huge cookout here on the 4th and I need to get my abilities honed in lol.

Anyways, here's some pictures for y'all. Just some things to note. I love Myron Mixon's recipes for his injections and sauces. I love them, but I changed some things up and added some things to make them my own.

In the pictures, the mason jars are wide mouth half gallon jars. When I do things, I like to do them big. Last weekend, my wife and I made french fries for supper. Figured while I was making them, I might as well make some for later. So we made up 60 lbs of hand cut french fries and froze them. Came out to be 12 gallons of french fries. I'll post some pictures of that in another thread maybe. Sometimes I can get carried away lol.

I'll update again tonight once I put them on the WSM.


Here's the injection. 1.5 gallons.

Pork Mop. Just over 1/2 gallon.

Pork Rub. Little less than 1/2 gallon.

I like big butts and I can not lie.

Fat cap trimmed up and injected with about 1 quart each.

Northern beans soaking overnight.

Some kickass coleslaw.

Creamy potato salad.

 

[Chuck Bench]

oh yeah, I forgot about the deviled eggs.

Everything we made tonight was made homemade from scratch with some help from my wife.

 

[John Solak]

Very nice prep work!!! Nobody's gonna be starving at your house tomorrow!

 

[Chuck Bench]

Thanks John...if they go hungry it's their own fault not mine lol

Here's the pics from putting the butts on the smoker. I kind of fell asleep and woke up at 1 am so that's when I got up and rubbed the butts and started the smoker. By the time I walked back inside it was almost 2 am.

 

[Chuck Bench]

While I was still awake, I figured I'd get Stokerlog up and running on my Macbook.

Little backdoor action with Boot Camp and Stokerlog is running and I like this.

 

[Ray Crick]

Very nicely done!

 

[Chuck Bench]

Thanks Ray. I got just over 4 hours sleep last night before my two kids came in pounced on me to wake me up lol.

I finally crawled into bed at 4:30 this morning.

I'm using Stokerlog through Boot Camp on my Macbook Pro and for some reason my speakers won't play. so I was up for a good while last night trying to figure that out. I would have went to bed around 3 if it wasn't for that hiccup.

 

[Rich Dahl]

Wow! You're one busy guy! That's going to be a great feast for sure!

 

[Mark Evenson]

Thanks for the pics and great description.
Eat well.

Mark

 

[Brian Dahl]

That's an ambitious meal - outta my league!

 

[Chuck Bench]

thanks fellas...

this is when I woke up this morning and got out to the smoker at around 9 am...

about 8 hours into the cook

 

[Barb D]

Chuck that looks great, your sure going to have soom fantastic food. Your parents are lucky.

 

[Chuck Bench]

Chuck that looks great, your sure going to have soom fantastic food. Your parents are lucky.

Thanks alot Barb. That's really nice of you to say. We're all gonna eat good today.

 

[Todd NC]

Chuck,
Those butts are looking great - as did your cole slaw and potato salad. It looks like you are on your way to a great bbq meal.

 

[Chuck Bench]

Pulled the butts off the WSM at 6 pm. One of them fell apart when I picked it up. They were at 188 and 194 internal temp.

Here's some pics...It's been a long 16 hours...But it was all worth it...

After an hour of resting, the butts were still so hot they were burning my fingers...

Laid out buffet style...

Pulled Pork...I saved most of the bark off the fat cap side for some treats...

Wound up making peach beans instead of cowboy beans...first time making these...will definitely use Pinto beans and dark brown sugar next time instead of light...also need to thicken them up...they were still very tasty though...

Potato salad...a little more mustard next time and some onion I think will push these over the top...

Coleslaw...I chopped the cabbage with a chop wizard doohickey thingy...won't do that next time...the coleslaw was good...it was just too consistent with sizing for my taste...I like rough cut slaw better...

Deviled eggs...a little more mustard in these next time too...

 

[Chuck Bench]

And here's your plate...there was soooo much left over it was unreal lol...I really underestimated how much food it would turn out to be...I also think with a little bit of modifying the recipes on the beans and potato salad, there will be a lot more color on the plate...