Despite a late start to the season due to our long round-the-world trip, I have been in full meat smoking mode this summer. Part of this because feeding slabs and chunks of meat is a good way to placate Goths when they are camped in your homeland. BUT, another was my determination to master a couple pieces of meat that had been eluding me since I got my trusty Yoder Pellet Smoker in 2014. These are the Pork Shoulder, specifically for making Pulled Pork, and the Beef Brisket.
I'd long ago gotten that hang of making great ribs and chicken. I produce a very lovely slow roasted pork that is roasted meat texture rather than fall of the bone pulled pork texture. But my brisket turned out tough, and I my pulled pork was too dry on the outside.
The solutions it turns out was discovered by a combination of serendipity and intuition. An online publication from the manufacturer of the smoker had an article on cooking brisket and talked about The Pause. The Pause comes at 165 degrees internal heat when the water in the meat is being pushed out. This in effect causes a cooling process so the cooking stalls. The solution is to wrap your meat in something like butcher paper or aluminum foil.
I tried this earlier in the summer but I was still a process that took too long (this is with me getting my meats on at like 5:30am), resulting in me having to put the meat in a hotter oven to finish in time and getting the drying out on the outside. This is when in conversations with the daughters about adjusting cooking for altitude I remembered The Boiling Point of Water is Lower at Altitude. Duh! No wonder it was taking longer to cook. The internal heat one could achieve during the cooking process was going to be less. I resolved this by going into the oven from the smoker earlier. (Going into the oven allows for more overall heat on the meat).
Both cuts came out the best I've ever produced. The brisked was nice and moist. The pulled pork truly fell of the bone when I broke it down.
The results of my efforts
What do we do with all that meat? We freeze it for many meals to come in the winter.
2 comments:
Chemistry to the rescue! Sorry, this vegetarian doesn't have much else to say :)
I didn't realize how long you'd been at it! My children would be devastated to know there was all that meat going with no one to eat it
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