Concrete block hog cooker....

So in my last post I mentioned that I was jonsin to roast a whole hog.  This hasn't changed a bit.  I have done quite a bit of additional research, I have come up with my own design for a cooker....and here it is:

So the whole thing is made of stacked concrete blocks with a plate of steel in the middle and then a sheet of expanded steel for the grate supported by additional rebar.  The whole thing is topped with a piece of hardwood ply with a hinge which is then layered with insulation and boxed off.

This design uses a popular smoker aspect called reverse flow.  In this design, the smoke and heat are forced through the entire length of the smoker under a steel plate before being retuned through the cooking area and vented back by the fire box.  If I do say so myself, this is the king of all backyard  hog cookers. 

This design will allow for amazing heat control and balnced heat throughout the entire length of the cooker.  Once brought up to 225 degrees, it would take very little to keep it at that temperature....I am very excited.  I could easily cook a 100 lb hog in this with precision control with easy access to the pig and the heat source.

Unfortunately, I am finding it difficult to find the materials at cheaper prices than I would like.  Cinder blocks seem to be easy to come by, but the expnaded metal and steel sheet are not so much.  I will continue exploring this and update you folks as I go along....if for some reason you have this stuf laying around....uhhhmm....lemme know. 

It's still shitty temps here in the NE, but I am having vivid dreams of warm weather and hickory smoke in the air.... 

Already in BBQ mode

So I am already in heightened BBQ mode.  Getting to go down to Florida for the holidays and seeing BBQ joints everywhere started it all.  Then I was so wonderfully surprised with a cooking class in New ORleans of all places.  When I returned on the day beore Christmas Eve, I miiediately felt the need to wip up something with a roux base.  I decided to make mini crawfish pies as an experiment to use as an additional appetizer for this years BBQ.  They came out great, and although I over buttered the pyloo dough (can you even do that?), I loved them. 

I have also began looking at super sized custom smokers.  This is a big change form the gas fired GOSM that I use, but I feel like it's the next level of competency that I need to conquer.  While looking at different smoker builds (because they really do come in all sizes), I also founs something called a cajun microwave. 

The cajun microwave is basically a wood box that is used to cook a whole pig.  Between me and my very talented brother, I caould definitely build one of these.  Therefore, it is only logical to have the desire to cook a whole pig (like 80 lbs) this year.

SO I write this in the desire that you will all see that I am totally crazy, but good food will follow.  I would post more pics about what is in my mind right now, but I am exhauseted after a long holiday season.  More to come in the next week.   

Updates continue

So it's a couple of weeks past the BBQ but I promised to finish this. 

So back to Saturday evening.  Fatties are done and now it's time to rub the brisket.  Nothing too fancy, just a dry rub and it will sit in the fridge for a few hours to absorb the flavors.  This year I got a 14 lb brisket and trimmed it down to almost 11.  A nice untrimmed brisket will have a thick part to it.  This is mostly fat and should be trimmed down to leave about 1/2" all the way over.  This will even out the thickness of the meat as well, allowing for more even cooking.  After doing some research, I also decided to score the meat diagonally.  THis is to allow the rub to get to the meat on the fatty side as well as letting some smoke in.....As a spoiler alert...I didn't see any difference in the flavor, smoke distribution or moisture of the meat due to the scoring.   I did decide to toss a beer into the bag with the brisket....beer always makes it better. 

About now the pork is almost done.  I take it out of the smoker and wrap it in foil.  I put it in a pan with a little coke.  This catches all the  juices which I later pour on top of the pork after it's pulled.  Unfortunately I realized that I didn't take any pics of the pork after it was done.  I was quite delirious at this point and was having trouble remembering anything.  It really is a site to see though.. this huge pile of deliciously smoked meat...good stuff.  This year I refrigerated the pork and reheated it the next day.  It saved me a TON of time when things would otherwise be very busy.  After this I passed out and set my alarm for 3 am.

At 3 am I wake up and begin to check the temp on the smoker.  It has absolutely no insulation, so it has to be adjusted based on the changed in outside temp....ex: night vs day.  I was also amazed this year at how much I had to mess with the temp when I put cool meat in.  It really screwed me.  Once I am happy with the temp, I get the wood going and put the brisket in.  I need to see smoke before it goes in to ensure that the meat properly absorbs it.  Otherwise the pores close and it doesn't get deep into the meat as I would like.  I used more mesquite on the brisket...really more than anything else.  Mesquite is a "hard" smoke and can become acrid if overused.   The meat goes in...and I set my alarm for 5 am.  

5 am rolls around and I check the meat.  More wood, more water and a little mop.  I used beer, onions, apple cider vinegar and a mix of some other stuff.  Back to sleep until 7 am. 

OK it's over

Well the BBQ is over, but I am still recovering.  I decided to document the experience so I have to finish that, plus there are so many good pics that came from everyone, so let me start off where I left off:

Saturday Morning:
So I awoke first thing in the morning and fired up the smoker.  It was easy to get it to the desired 225 degrees and with the water pan steaming, I added a mixture of mesquite and hickory to the smoke box.  We are getting ready to put the 2 8 lb pork butts in.  I stick to using only a little mesquite and then mostly hickory with the pork.  Mesquite is definitely the choice in Texas, and everything is smoked in it heavily at traditional BBQ joints.  Mesquite, however, can have a very acrid smoke and it is easy to overpower everything.  The hickory os powerful, but it is more bold than acrid and can be used generously. 

The dry rub I put on it the evening before has become a gooey coating, perfect for BBQing.  Once the smoke is rising, the pork goes in and I begin cleaning the house.  Having a cat sux because there is hair everywhere....and I do mean everywhere.  I did a preliminary cleaning the weekend before and it still amazes me. 

It's about 2 hours in now and I need to begin basting the pork.  I use a mixture of water, apple cider vinegar and bourbon, plus spices like pepper, pepper flakes, cayenne and salt.  You have to use the salt.  It pulls the everything into the meat, and without it your BBQ will be flavorless. 

12 pm - I get the call at noon that the crawfish have been delivered to my parents house out on Long Island.  It takes me another 2 hours to even leave my house.  Unfortunately, I don't actually have an address and Fedex usually has their head up their ass in the field where I live, so to be on the safe side, I have them delivered to an actual address.  Hence the roadtrip.  I baste the pork, add more wood and head out.  This gives me a chance to pick up more cigars, a few items I forgot form the grocery store and to just sit down outside of my house for a minute.

People give me angry stares as I bob and weave through the Memorial Day shopping crowd at the grocery store.  Sorry folks, I am in a rush unlike yourselves who want to read every ingredient on a jar of applesauce, park your cart in the middle of an aisle or haggle over the 10 cent coupon that you swear isn't expired. 

I get to my parent's house and finally get the crawfish.  They ship in a big styrofoam box and I swear that Fedex drop kicks them every year.  They are leaking all over the place and I have to mitigate this with some garbage bags.  Ever get crawfish juice in your car?....you don't want to.

I make it back home and immediately start processing the crawfish.  THye have to be kept alive for 24 hours, so I hose them off vigorously and put the sack in a fridge covered in newspaper.  It keeps them in a stgate of suspended animation for a while and reduces their metabolic needs.  Ok back home to check on the pork and process the rest of the stuff.

I've been away so I need to check on the smoker.  Add more water, which keeps the humidity up.  Anyone who has ever taken a class on weather will learn about water and pressure systems moving from high to low pressures.  Same in a smoker...you want the water to stay in the meat and not move out into the dry air of the smoker.  So to mitigate that, you add tons of steam to raise the humidity.  More wood and then back in the kitchen. 

Ahhhhhh....time to do the fatties.  For those of you not familiar wiht this BBQ lingo, fatties are a roll made from some sort of ground meat, stuffed with your choice of whatever (I have even seen one stuffed with White Castle sliders), wrapped in more meat and then smoked.  Today we are doing 3 types:  the southwest, the italian and the polish/german.  The southwest is JD sausage with chipotle and jalapeno peppers, bbq sausce, onion and cheddar cheese.  Polish/german is JD sausage, stuffed with kielbasa, muenster cheese, sauerkraut  and mustard.  Both of these were bacon wrapped.  Now for the crowning jewel:  the italian - Italian sausage meat stuffed with cappicola, mortadella, salami, mozzerella cheese and slathered with pesto.  To keep with the italian theme, I used pancetta instead of bacon.  It was beautiful.  Off to the fridge with you guys till tomorrow.

Using the bag method to roll out the sausage..so worth it.

The southwest beginning it's roll

The bacon weave

The beginning of the italian

The seond half of the italian

and....the pancetta

OK I am not nearly done but I have to get some breakfast.  I'll continue more later.  Drool over the pics. 

One more day closer

So I spent most of the day prepping the appetizers and I just threw the dry rub on the pork.  Lots of folks calling excited about the weekend.  I am beat already, but I'm glad that I'm getting some of this stuff done in advance so I can enjoy the day when it finally comes.  Enjoy the pics.  Crawfish coming tomorrow morning. 

Checking the roux with the penny test.  Should be the same color.

Crawfish stuffing almost done

Fried pickles getting breaded

First of the jalapenos being stuffed

'Penos are done

Beginning the pork. 

Pork is done

Little beer for me and a little for the pork.

Shopping complete

Ok so almost 8 hours of food shopping all over Long Island has lead me to an overstuffed fridge, a Popeye's chicken dinner and a desire to pass out on the couch.  Over 50 lbs of meat plus everything else.  The brisket was only 13 lbs, but I liked it a lot more than the 17lb one.  If you haven't ever been to a Western Beef (and you love meat) you need to get your ass to one.  Half of the store is a walk in refrigerator full of huge cuts of meat.  They will also custom trim anything for you as well.  It was like I had died and gone to heaven.

The guy at Costco hooked me up with a really big pack of the pork butt and it looks extra fatty.  It's not even 8 am on Friday and I am already prepping the crawfish tails to begin stuffing the jalapenos and pre-breading the pickles.  Both have to be frozen to fry properly.  This also really helps reduce my workload the day of the BBQ, since I can just grab everything out of the freezer and throw it in the deep fryer. 

I am not looking forward to the rest of the housework to be completed today, but if I can get it all done, then tomorrow is just relaxing and beginning the smoking process. 

A week out...

Ok so it's a little over a week away and I am tying up the last of the home improvements:  Outdoor speakers, putting up the pool, finishing deck addons.  I have been searching for recipes for a few things and combining a few recipes to get my desired results.  I can't wait and am praying for sunshine with all this rain we have been having.  I am going to be blogging the experience this year and adding pics to the whole thing.  I figured that it would give me something to do while everything was cooking and also allow people to see what was going on as we were getting ready for the party.  Hope to see you all there...otherwise you can see what you missed.