Ozark Razorback Smokin' Pork Butts and Salsa

SMOKIN’ Boston Butt and Salsa

From Nels' Kitchen:--

Having lived most of my life in the South, I’ve had the opportunity to sample many different kinds of barbecue. My earliest attempt of smoking meat had a Justin Wilson Cajun attitude with an abundance of spicy taste. He was the first to deep fry turkeys some fifty years ago. I can remember him doing a lot of prepping of his meats, covering them with garlic, onions and hot red peppers (Cayenne, also known as Chile de Arbol). So I went through a phase of poking holes in my roast to insert the Cajun Trinity. I spent too much time plugging holes in the roast with green onions, split cloves of garlic and Cayenne peppers and would end up with overly spicy meat that few could enjoy. Then I had a thing with using aluminum foil to either pre-cook or post-cook my barbecue into a fall-off-the-bone mush...but all the prepping and pre and post treatments in the world can’t stand up to plain ol’ pit/smoke barbecue—a Southern tradition that will make you want to call the hogs. Sooooooie Pig!  

The night before the BQ, ready yourself by removing the Boston Butt from your freezer to thaw in the sink. When cruising the meat department, I’m always on the lookout for raging butts that hail, “Pick me! Pick me!” It always gets my attention when roasts, in the six to seven pound range and priced right ($1.79 to $1.89/lb) —trimmed of all excess fat, maintaining alean marbling, are out on display. I’ll jump on a couple of them if they call out to me loud enough and somehow find room for them in our deep freeze, without hesitation. Those butts are like money in the bank and will never go to waste—they promise mouth watering, tongue slapping, olfactory tantalizing, pulled pork extravaganza—I guarantee to borrow the words of the first Ragin’ Cajun Justin Wilson.  Here Pig, pig, pig, pig!

While making my weekly run to town for provisions, I cruise the produce department when my garden is out of season. I’m searching for vine ripened tomatoes, green peppers, garlic and sweet onions to fire up with my butt in the smoker. I love nothing more than to throw together some of the best Salsa this side of the Mason Dixon line…Woooo Pig!! Sooie!! This Salsa is the best! I guarantee…

KNOW YOUR SMOKER

— Discussion—

I prefer indirect fired charcoal/wood burning smokers with built-in thermometers. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They will all work for you, if you know your smoker and can control the temperature, because making award winning BQ is all about controlling time and temperature. 

Since we are not grilling but rather smoking, water pans are provided with all stack-type smokers. I started out smoking with this type of grill and learned the disadvantages of temperature variances between the top and bottom of whichever grill is closest to the water pan. The biggest disadvantage in that is having to break it down when adding fresh coals or water to the pan. But it can be done…

—Precaution—

In furnace and grilling operations heat storage loss can spell disaster. Maintaining proper temperature is of utmost importance throughout the smoking process. When selecting a smoker, be sure to keep that in mind. Holding a specific temperature in the smoking operation is easier with the firebox-chimney type smoker, because it is not necessary to remove the lid to either replace spent coals or add water… conserving temperature loss.

The other disadvantage with the stack type smokers (as I see it) is that the grilling racks are substantially smaller and won’t hold as much meat—presenting problems when trying to cook for larger parties and other special occasions. But if your needs are strictly for family use, the stack type might be right one for you. Honestly, the only advantage I see in the stack type smoker is that it’s lightweight and mobile. You can take them just about anywhere...and you can play around with adding citrus leaves and other things to your water pan. Clove-studded, honey basted hams, with pan-boiled orange peels/leaves…are divine. 

Step (1)   Prepping your Butt.

Remove the bottom layer of fat from the butt. It’s easily removed when your butt is about half thawed. Fillet the half- to three-quarter-inch fatty layer off at the mesentery layer of the meat and fat interfaces. Then carefully rinse your butt with cold water and pat dry.

• Seasoning: I have tried every imaginable assortment of sauces, spices and seasonings to flavor my butts. Injecting them with marinade is good and works for some folks. When I inject my roast I cover nearly every inch at varying depths to sweeten the meat. My taste for a marinade is a rich solution of balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce with a squeeze of lemon….this can be done the night before or day of your barbecue. Then I use a rub of a variety of spices on the outside of the roast. My rub usually consists of onion and garlic powder, paprika, salt and fresh ground pepper, but I’ve been known to incorporate cumin and chili powders into the mix as well.
• Apply olive oil to the outside of the roast, then sprinkle and rub assorted spices into every crevice and surface possible.

—Precaution—

Remember, one can reach a point of diminishing returns using a lot of marinating solutions and rubs. Some of the best pork barbecue I’ve tasted came from an open pit grill with minimal amounts of spices. An old African-American guy I knew, commandeering the fork, would use a mixture of white pepper, black pepper, garlic powder and salt, dissolved in a solution of apple and white vinegars. Don’t forget most of the mouth watering favor will be achieved through the slow cooking in your smoker and an abundance of spices will be overwhelmed by the smoke. Keep it simple is my motto; it works for me and my butts. A good season-salt with extra garlic powder for your seasoning rub will work fine. Don’t be duped by the so-called professionals...creating a masterpiece butt has more to do with finding the right cut of meat and a low cooking temperature than an abundance of marinades and spices.  

      

Step (2)  Building the Fire.

Tubular-shaped, metal charcoal starters that hold the charcoal above two sheets of wadded newspaper to ignite the briquettes works great for smoking purposes. Charcoal fluid starters can taint your meat, giving your butt an unfavorable taste. However, the starters that use newspaper are ideal for charging your smoker with fresh coals after the smoking has begun.

   

• Fill starter container half full of briquettes (approximately 3 lbs), then light the bottom two sheets of newspaper, which will take about five minutes to ignite and another ten to fifteen minutes to convert into glowing red hot coals.
• Add coals to firebox, leaving them in a mound and add a couple handfuls of unignited briquettes to the heap. On top of this pile or beside it, I place a chunk of hickory or oak firewood roughly the size of your fist and ten to twelve inches long.
•  Good idea to wear cotton gloves when handling starter to prevent burns or irritation.
• Close firebox hood while opening the box vents half way on the stack and the firebox. A reducing flame is better suited for smoking than an oxygen rich oxidizing flame, so be sure to adjust both vents accordingly.

    

• Clean grilling grates. We repurpose all used sheets of aluminum foil for the express purpose of cleaning our grills. Lightly crumple the used aluminum into a wad to rub off any residue from previous use—once the grill heats up. Grill brushes purchased for this purpose are expensive and don’t last very long, quickly becoming clogged with grease from barbeques past.    

Step (3)  Meat Placement

Place your butt on the grating in the upper portion of the meat box, followed by adding tomatoes and peppers for your salsa  (optional) in the back portion of the meat box.

Step (4)   Maintain 170 – 200 *F. 

This is the optimal smoking temperature for me. At the start of my smokin’ experience, I like to heat up the inside of the meat compartment of my smoker, and then adjust the flame by reducing the amount of oxygen through the firebox vent. Shortly after charging the firebox, all the heat given off from the coals will cause the smoker to become very hot…and that’s good. This is a great time to clean the grill because the thermometer is likely pegged—i.e., off the chart on the high side. The stack vent controls the amount of draw or heat flow through the meat box and should be shut to just a crack to lower the cooking temperature to the optimal range. At this lower range one can anticipate an eight hour cooking duration for your six to seven pound butt.

   

• Keep a close eye on your temperature and not your meat and slowly bring down the temperature by adjusting the amount of air in (firebox vent) and the air out (chimney stack vent) which acts as a damper on the furnace. During the first three or four hours the smoker temperature should be around the upper range and its okay to be at or above the upper range (+/-200 degrees). 

• Start fresh coals when the temperature of the smoker approaches the minimum range. Use the procedure given in Step 2. This will normally occur two to three hours into the process. The time in which you charge the fire box will depend mainly on ambient temperature and how many times the hood to the meat box was raised.

—Discussion—

When the time has come to charge the firebox with fresh coals, remove tomatoes and peppers and flip your roast while giving it a few pokes to check its progress...With four to six hours remaining on the roast, one has ample time to throw together the smokin’ salsa and water-bath can the unused portion of the salsa. This is easy, since everything in the salsa is precooked.

Smokin’ Salsa Instructions

   

    Tomatoes and peppers are HOT when they come off the grill. Handle with care! If you cover the dish with a lid or plastic, the steam created by the heat will help to get the skins off.

       

• Remove the dried and withered skin of the tomatoes and peppers after they’re taken from the grill. They should be well-cooked and the skin should rub off easily. In a big mixing bowl, cut up tomatoes.
• Remove pepper seeds once the skin has been removed and finely dice peppers.
• Add chopped garlic and onions to taste, along with salt or any other seasonings you’d like.

• Salt to taste 

Add 1-2 smoked Chipotle (seeds removed and finely diced) peppers

—Discussion—

Nine pints of salsa can be derived from six to eight smoked Roma tomatoes, one medium sized sweet onion, one entire garlic clove and five fifteen or sixteen ounce cans of stewed tomatoes. The smoked tomatoes and peppers are pungent enough to give a nice blend of flavor to the canned tomatoes. But you can make it even more right!

Step  (5)

At six hours into the smoking process your butt should be approaching being done. The last couple hours of your six to eight hour duration, the smoker temperature should be maintained towards the lower end of the range (170-185*F).

• Check roast at thirty minute intervals once the butt has cooked six hours. The roast should have shrunk slightly and the meat surrounding the bone should have pulled back approximately one quarter of a inch. If this has occurred, do a “Fork Pull” test at several locations (top and bottom). If you can easily pull chunks of meat from various locations on the roast it is done. However, if one area of your butt doesn’t pull, then face that portion of roast towards the heat source for an additional thirty minutes.
• Remove butt when done. Wrap in aluminum foil to let roast settle down for thirty minutes or so before breaking down and eating. 

 Enjoy!