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BBQed pork? Okay, I'll chip in: === Qualifications From age 5 to 22, I was in Memphis. I was there again from age 30 to 32. At ballpark 8 ounces of pork BB

BBQed pork? Okay, I'll chip in: === Qualifications From age 5 to 22, I was in Memphis. I was there again from age 30 to 32. At ballpark 8 ounces of pork BBQ a month, that would be (1/2) * 12 * 20 = 120 pounds of pork BBQ consumed. Dad often took me to the annual Winchester-Western gun show with fantastic shooting by Herb Parsons. Also featured was pork BBQ -- paper plates piled high with it, with coleslaw, potato salad, and some bread -- cooked overnight on racks over a temporary dug pit maybe 2 feet deep, 4 feet wide, and 50 yards long with smoldering wood, likely hickory. With the BBQ contest Memphis in May, Memphis has some claims to significant, competitive pork BBQ expertise. The Nathan Myhrvold winning efforts at Memphis in May contribute to the level of expertise. Now I'm in East Tennessee, another area for serious pork BBQ. And I've cooked my own versions of pork BBQ off and on for over 20 years. === Theory From various readings, there is a theory of "low and slow" meat cooking including BBQ: Part of the theory is that the meat fibers themselves are always tender. When meat is tough, the cause is collagen. So, to make tough meat tender, melt the collagen, and can do that at 165 F, a temperature that is also commonly regarded as high enough for food safety. If get the meat fibers much above, say, 180 F for too long, then the fibers will shrink, expel their water, and become dry and brittle, that is, not succulent. Generally, 212 F for very long is too darned hot. In practice often can get by with cooking meat at 212 F, that is, boiling it, if (A) the meat is quite tender and (B) don't have the meat at 212 F for very long. So, my best guess is that BBQ is from cooking "low and slow", and the "low" is about 165-170 F, and the "slow" is several hours, until the meat is still juicy and quite tender, i.e., succulent. === Most Recent Trial This HN OP is timely: On Saturday, April 3rd, 2021 I bought a fresh "boneless pork butt" of 8.9 pounds, $21.72. That piece is also called Boston Butt. It is the shoulder of the hog. I have a rack of stainless steel wires that can be adjusted to the shape of a V and a rectangular covered granite toasting pan 19.5 x 12.88 x 7" === Cooking So, I put the pork on the V rack in the bottom of the roaster, inserted a meat thermometer into the pork, put on the top of the roaster, and placed the whole assembly into a pre-heated 225 F oven. At 2.5 hours later the meat thermometer read 165 F. Then I reduced the oven temperature to 170 F and cooked for another 8 hours. Then it appeared that the meat was quite tender and the fat, collagen, and water were in the bottom of the roasting pan. === Chopping East Tennessee pork shoulder BBQ is pulled pork as mentioned in the OP. Here the fibers of the pork are separated via pulling with, say, two forks. In West Tennessee, e.g., Memphis when I was there, the pork is coarsely chopped. So, with a cooking fork and a cooking spoon, I moved the chunks of the pork one at a time to my cutting board and used a French chef's knife with a 12" long blade to coarsely chop the pork and used a spatula to shovel it into two covered plastic containers, each with 2 quarts of volume. === Yield The weight of the final BBQ was 2,205 grams and the volume, loosely packed, was about 4 quarts. The raw weight of the pork was 8.09 * 16 * 28.3495 = 3,670 grams so that the yield was 100 * 2,205 / 3,670 = 60.1% which is surprisingly high. The bottom of the roasting pan had about 1.5 quarts of liquid with about 5 fluid ounces of fat. Chilled, the fat did not become solid, and the liquid did not gel. === Cost per Serving A generous serving of the BBQ is 8 ounces or 8 * 28.3495 = 227 grams so that the total cooked weight of 2,205 grams has 2,205 / 227 = 9.7 servings for 21.72 / 9.7 = $2.24 per serving. === Serving In the cooking I added no salt, pepper, BBQ rubs, or other seasonings. For serving, I warm in a microwave oven and add some bottle BBQ sauce and some bottled hot sauce. === Changes (1) The boneless pork butt -- from the cutting to remove the bone -- had the meat falling apart in several pieces. In the future, I will buy only the bone-in version and cook it with the bone in. (2) The 8 hours at 170 F may be too long -- shorter cooking might yield meat that is just as tender but more succulent, i.e., more moist. (3) Generally I prefer to do pork BBQ cooking with a picnic pork shoulder. That cut is really from a front arm, has the elbow joint inside, and is usually sold with some of the skin still attached. With this cut, the meat may remain more moist as it melts out its collagen. === Extras I have plans to do beef stew starting, NOT with relatively tender and expensive beef chuck roast but, with, say, beef bottom round roast. And I hope to save money by stepping down from USDA Prime and Choice to USDA Select or Cutters and Canners. Retired dairy cows might be a good source, and once I called around to some packing houses and asked what happens to such cows. The short answer was "think fast food". The offer was to buy boxes of 50 pounds at a time! Maybe someday I will and have beef stew for family and friends for months! A. Escoffier has a remark that the beef from older animals has better flavor. So, US fast food is getting the beef with the better flavor! So, right, I intend to cook the beef at 165-170 F and NEVER let the stewing liquid boil (as long as the beef is in that liquid -- boiling later to reduce the volume to concentrate and strengthen flavors, sure). Put the pot of stew in an oven at 350 F, or 225 F? Let the meat "simmer"? NOT a chance! Instead, 165-170 F and NO MORE. Pork BBQ is often served with coleslaw. My recipe is to shred a head of green cabbage and then soak the result to desired wetness with just bottled Ranch salad dressing.

tptacek 6y ago
Cooking meat in a pot of 212F water is boiling it, because water is an excellent conductor of heat. Cooking meat in a 212F grill is barely cooking at all, because air is not. 225-240F is the "low" end of "low and slow" in a smoker setup.
- graycat 6y ago
  Yes. In the trial I described, I used a 225 F oven for about 2 1/2 hours to get the meat internal temperature to 165 F. Then I lowered the oven temperature to 170 F and, wonder of wonders, 8 hours later the internal temperature of the meat was, right, 170 F. I did all that in a covered roasting pan in an oven. But even on a grill, if have the internal temperature at 165-170 F, an air temperature on a grill of 170 F will, bingo, keep the meat internal temperature at 165-170 F.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    At the point where you're slowly drying your protein out at 165, you might instead consider just putting it in a circulator and then finishing it in smoke.
    - graycat 6y ago
      I cook the pork to 165 F for food safety and to melt the collagen, and both of those are necessary and need the heat. The intention is not to dry the proteins: Generally as soon as the collagen is melted, the pork is done and plenty moist -- succulent. Never heard of a "circulator". I have no smoker or cooking source that generates smoke from wood products. I have no interest in entering BBQ competitions -- Myhrvold already did that and wrote lots of documentation on what he did in cooking. My main goal in cooking is just food good on some balance of nutrition, flavor, preparation time, and cost. In that, for my time, etc., a pork shoulder on a rack in a covered granite roaster in a good electric oven in a good kitchen stove is a good option. Sure, elements of flavor include salt, pepper, vinegar, lemon juice, smoke, caramelization, Maillard browning, umami, often carried by fats, etc. But to simplify things to save me time, my working hypothesis is that, if in the end I want good flavors from smoke, sugar, lemon, vinegar, apple juice, tomato, brown sugar, molasses, capsaicin, etc., then I will add those just before eating. For Malliard browning, sugar caramelization, the coveted burned crisps, those are only for the external surface and, thus, just a small part of the total volume which to me means that, due to the time and effort required to get them, I can do without them. If I want something better than the BBQ I've been getting, then I will turn to other directions from America, France, Italy, Austria, etc. E.g., one path to a good sauce is some good beef stock (or just a can of Campbell's Beef Consomme), heavy cream, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper, with some Mailliard browning from deglazing a pan fried steak with the beef stock. Astounding things can be done with good Kirschwasser, heavy cream, cherries, and chocolate! American cherry pie with a lard crust is tough to beat. Similarly for apple. My family recipe for Thanksgiving turkey with stuffing in the turkey is terrific: The recipe was intended to make lean, wild turkeys moist; on current grocery store domesticated turkeys the recipe is magnificent overkill! I like BBQ pork, but the notes I gave here are about a far as I care to go with the subject.

tptacek 6y ago

Cooking meat in a pot of 212F water is boiling it, because water is an excellent conductor of heat. Cooking meat in a 212F grill is barely cooking at all, because air is not. 225-240F is the "low" end of "low and slow" in a smoker setup.

graycat 6y ago
Yes. In the trial I described, I used a 225 F oven for about 2 1/2 hours to get the meat internal temperature to 165 F. Then I lowered the oven temperature to 170 F and, wonder of wonders, 8 hours later the internal temperature of the meat was, right, 170 F. I did all that in a covered roasting pan in an oven. But even on a grill, if have the internal temperature at 165-170 F, an air temperature on a grill of 170 F will, bingo, keep the meat internal temperature at 165-170 F.
- tptacek 6y ago
  At the point where you're slowly drying your protein out at 165, you might instead consider just putting it in a circulator and then finishing it in smoke.
  - graycat 6y ago
    I cook the pork to 165 F for food safety and to melt the collagen, and both of those are necessary and need the heat. The intention is not to dry the proteins: Generally as soon as the collagen is melted, the pork is done and plenty moist -- succulent. Never heard of a "circulator". I have no smoker or cooking source that generates smoke from wood products. I have no interest in entering BBQ competitions -- Myhrvold already did that and wrote lots of documentation on what he did in cooking. My main goal in cooking is just food good on some balance of nutrition, flavor, preparation time, and cost. In that, for my time, etc., a pork shoulder on a rack in a covered granite roaster in a good electric oven in a good kitchen stove is a good option. Sure, elements of flavor include salt, pepper, vinegar, lemon juice, smoke, caramelization, Maillard browning, umami, often carried by fats, etc. But to simplify things to save me time, my working hypothesis is that, if in the end I want good flavors from smoke, sugar, lemon, vinegar, apple juice, tomato, brown sugar, molasses, capsaicin, etc., then I will add those just before eating. For Malliard browning, sugar caramelization, the coveted burned crisps, those are only for the external surface and, thus, just a small part of the total volume which to me means that, due to the time and effort required to get them, I can do without them. If I want something better than the BBQ I've been getting, then I will turn to other directions from America, France, Italy, Austria, etc. E.g., one path to a good sauce is some good beef stock (or just a can of Campbell's Beef Consomme), heavy cream, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper, with some Mailliard browning from deglazing a pan fried steak with the beef stock. Astounding things can be done with good Kirschwasser, heavy cream, cherries, and chocolate! American cherry pie with a lard crust is tough to beat. Similarly for apple. My family recipe for Thanksgiving turkey with stuffing in the turkey is terrific: The recipe was intended to make lean, wild turkeys moist; on current grocery store domesticated turkeys the recipe is magnificent overkill! I like BBQ pork, but the notes I gave here are about a far as I care to go with the subject.