Smoking Meat Northwest Style

Early summer days and the call of a meat smoker nudge a young man’s fancy towards one thing – pulled pork sandwiches. In my household dueling pulled pork sandwiches really comes down to dueling sauces. It is the sauce and spice rub that people swear by. I favor a sweeter smoky tomato based Western style barbecue sauce whereas my wife and her family love the vinegary North Carolina sauce. This sets up another layer of mother-in-law dynamics that I had not anticipated when I got married. Word to the wise: You don’t dis a man and his dog and you best embrace your mother-in-law’s favorite recipes.

The nice thing is, it’s easy to accommodate any number of sauces with this basic recipe and in fact, you can use several sauces and quickly make individual sandwiches to meet everyone’s tastes in sauces.

We started up the Sub Rosa smoker in mid-February this year with the spate of unseasonably warm weather we had. Spring Chinook season is but a distant memory now and we’ve smoked our summer stash of salmon, but there is an 8 pound pork shoulder next in line to be wood smoked.

No doubt you can braise the meat in a heavy pot in the manner of carnitas de porco and make decent pulled pork, but it isn’t the same as slowly smoking it over wood chips for hours on end. I also see recipes for smoking meat in the oven, but I can only imagine what that would do to the inside of oven. There are range top smokers as well, but they tend leave your house smelling like a ski lodge after a bad down draft from the fireplace and are only good for small amounts of meat. It’s hard to replicate three hours of slow cooking over smoldering woods chips in anything but an outdoor smoker.

Pulled pork is a classic dish made by cooking a pork roast until it is so tender it can be pulled apart with the fingers. Before serving, the pork is tossed with barbecue sauce, and is usually served as a sandwich. In the South, pulled pork sandwiches were served at political rallies to pull the masses in to hear the candidates speak. Today pulled pork sandwiches beckon you to roadside diners and backyard festivities.

The whole process, from start to finish, of creating a world class pulled pork sandwich can take 6-9 hours to prep and cook the meat. Once you taste this, you'll agree it was worth the time spent. Besides, you can sample a bottle of wine while the smoke does its magic. So kick back and relax.

The Rub

For pulled pork sandwiches, you use a dry rub on your pork shoulder. A dry rub is some combination of herbs and spices rubbed into the meat dry, as opposed to a brine soak or marinade. For this meal, we used two different rubs to see how they affected the flavor. Our results may shock the barbecue cultist and wood smoke fanatics but should reassure the beginner. First the rub, then the results.

One rub is mildly complex, the other quite simple.

The simple rub is: 2 Tbs. ground black pepper, 2 Tbs. chili powder and 2 Tbs. crushed red pepper flakes.

The more complex rub is: 1 Tbs. ground black pepper, 2 tsp. cayenne, 2 Tbs. chili powder, 2 Tbs. cumin powder, 2 Tbs. brown sugar, 1 Tbs. oregano, 4 Tbs. paprika, 2 Tbs. salt, 1 Tbs. sugar and 1 Tbs. white pepper.

For either rub, apply liberally to the meat then wrap the seasoned meat tightly in plastic wrap (in order to hold the rub against the meat) place the wrapped meat inside of a plastic bag and put in a refrigerator for anywhere from three hours to three days.

Our results were surprising. Basically the rubs didn’t affect our end product as much as we expected. Certainly each rub added nuance to the smoked meat, but it was the sauces and smoking that dominated the flavor of the sandwich and determined the real flavors, but more on that later.

The Meat

I recommend you buy 6-8 lbs of pork shoulder roast, also called a Boston pork butt. I cut the meat into four equal hunks in order to experiment with different rubs and to allow more surfaces for the meat to absorb the smoke. This sounds like a lot of meat, but it reduces down significantly and trust me, if you have left-over pulled pork you will have no problem making use of it for the few days afterwards. This amount can feed 10-12 people with a sandwich apiece. It disappears faster than you might imagine.

The Buns

Regular hamburger buns are traditional and work just fine. Any large rustic roll will do. I ordered half size hamburger buns from a local bakery in order for people to sample the two sauces without over eating. I’ve seen pulled pork sandwiches made with thick rustic Italian or French bread and put in a panini sandwich press.

The Wood

We’ve been able to collect an amazing array of wood samples suitable for smoking meats, mostly from our own property. Cherry, walnut, hazelnut, plum, apple, pear and maple all grow here at Sub Rosa and nearby in Dundee. In lieu of building your own stash of exotic smoking wood, the local hardware store might have some excellent hickory or alder chips in convenient small bags for you to use. Char-Broil sells 5 lb bags of hickory chips as does briquette goliath Kingsford. With a little searching on the Internet, you can pull yourself together a natty collection of exotic woods from pecan sawdust to blocks of mesquite, apple and alder. Anticipate that you will need about 4 cups wood chips and maybe 4-6 (3-inch) wood chunks to complete your 3-4 hour smoking routine.

Cherry is especially good with beef and pork and is what we used in this recipe. It has a tendency to turn meat a rich mahogany color and delivers a very satisfying smoke flavor. We try to balance cherry wood with hickory, alder or oak so as to not overpower the meat with one flavor of wood. Just don’t think of using softwoods like cedar, pine or fir. These will ruin your smoker and your meat.

The Smoker

I grew up with two smokers. The first was one of those ‘Little Chief’ electric smokers where you scorched hickory sawdust in a small pan over an enclosed hotplate. It actually worked pretty well and I smoked many a trout and made lots of beef jerky as a kid. The other smoker was a neighbor’s converted refrigerator with a home-made firebox attached. Now THAT was a smoker! You had to tend the fire and watch the temperature, but the smoke you got was low heat, steady and thick and the converted refrigerator had the capacity to smoke anything from your limit of salmon to most of a deer. I grew to love the resinous smell of a wood smoker.

Today I smoke my pork and salmon for that matter on one of two units - a Brinkman Smoke N’Grill or a Weber charcoal grill. The Brinkman is what is called a water smoker. A water smoker is a metal capsule containing, from the bottom up, a place for the heat source (charcoal or gas) and the smoke source (soaked wood chips); a pan for holding water, wine or broth (the ingredients that help keep the temperature low, add moisture and keep the dripping fat from hitting the heat); and then a rack or two for the food. I like the Brinkman because it uses gas which keeps a steady heat. It produces a consistent smoke and was inexpensive to buy (got it at a garage sale). I like the Weber mainly for sentimental reasons and besides, everyone has a charcoal grill and it does a damn good job at both grilling and smoking meat.

There are dozens of great smoking units out on the market if you want to get serious. The ancient oriental Kamoado Cooker (aka The Big Green Egg) is an ideal and versatile smoker, grill and barbecue unit. The local Traeger BBQ from Mt. Angel, Ore. is designed after the traditional Texas Style wood cookers. This unit automatically augers wood pellet fuel to provide a range of temperatures and flavors of wood. Now, if you want to make smoking a full-time sport, you're moving toward a wood smoker that eats wood chunks or logs. These smokers are made from heavy-gauge plate-steel drums turned on their sides, often with fireboxes that are topped with grills to do double duty. These big guys weigh up to several hundred pounds and cost many hundreds of dollars.

Smoking Your Meat

The Brinkman Smoke N’ Grill has two grilling surfaces stacked on the inside one above the other and a steel water pan inside that rests above the flame. By combining smoke, heat and steam, food is naturally basted with no tending or turning.

I have a small cast iron box to hold wood chips that I put on top of the gas flame, though any number of tin or metal pans would work. I also use lava rocks on the side of the metal box to dissipate the flame and to lay larger chunks of water soaked wood on. This unit works pretty well, though it tends to run hot, like 275 – 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Ideally, you want to keep the temperature at 225 F. Keeping the water pan from going dry will help keep the temperature down and the inside humidity up.

Here’s what you do for your Weber charcoal grill: Close 2 of the 3 bottom vents. Build one pile of 45 to 50 briquettes over the opened vent. Ignite and burn 25 to 30 minutes, until coals are covered with a light coating of gray ash.

Drain wood chips. Place a large 2-inch-deep disposable foil drip pan on opposite side of coals on bottom grate. Fill pan halfway up with water (for steam inside the kettle). Place 1 cup of chips over hot coals. Replace top cooking grate.

Place meat over drip pan and close lid with opening over meat. Grill pork 3-4 hours. Replenish briquettes and wood chips as needed every 1 to 1-1/2 hours to maintain a temperature inside the grill of about 225 degrees F to 250 degrees F.

Regardless of what style of smoker you use, you will need to have a good quality thermometer that can read the inside temperature of the unit. Any good smoker will come with such a thermometer. You may have to retrofit an existing grill, but it it’s absolutely necessary to keep a consistent, even and low heat environment inside your smoker.

Here's what you need to smoke your pork butt over a Weber charcoal grill:

• 1 bone-in pork roast, preferably fresh or picnic ham, 6 to 8 pounds
• ¾ cup dry rub
• 4-6 (3-inch) wood chunks and/or 4 cups wood chips
• One bag of quality charcoal briquettes
• Heavy-duty aluminum foil
• Two roasting pan (about 8 by 10 inches)
• Brown paper grocery bag
• 2 cups barbecue sauce, homemade or in a pinch - Bull's-Eye brand original flavor is mighty tasty.

At least 1 hour prior to cooking, remove the meat from the refrigerator, unwrap, and let come to room temperature. Soak the wood chunks in cold water to cover for at least 1 hour and drain. Place the wood chips on an 18-inch square of aluminum foil, seal to make a packet, and use a fork to create about 6 holes to allow smoke to escape or if you have one of those small cast iron wood chip boxes, use that.

Meanwhile, light a large chimney filled a bit less than halfway with charcoal briquettes (about 2½ pounds or 40 coals) and allow to burn until covered with a thin layer of ash. Empty the coals into one side of the grill, piling them into a mound two or three briquettes high. Keep the bottom vents completely open. Place the wood chunks or the packet with the chips on top of the charcoal.

Set the unwrapped roast in the disposable pan and place it on the grate opposite the fire. Open the grill lid vents three-quarters of the way and cover, turning the lid so the vents are opposite the wood chunks or chips to draw smoke through the grill. Cook, adding about 8 briquettes every hour or so to maintain an average temperature of 225-275 degrees, for 3 hours. When the meat is done (it should reach 160 degrees F. on a meat thermometer). Now it is time to move into the kitchen to finish the process.

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheated 325 F. degrees oven. Wrap the pan holding the roast with heavy-duty foil to cover completely and seal the edges. Place the pan in the oven and bake until meat is fork-tender, about 2 hours. So yes, you are 5 hours into just the cooking portion of the preparation. Clearly, this is epitome of the slow food movement.

Next, slide the foil-wrapped pan with the roast into a brown paper bag. Crimp the top shut. Let the roast rest for 1 hour. Don't be tempted to skip the final rest in a paper bag. This makes all the difference if you want really tender pork.

Transfer the roast to a cutting board and unwrap. When the pork is cool enough to handle, pull the roasts into strips with your hands removing the fat, if desired. Pull each strip into think strips about 1 ½ inches thick. Chop the strips into small pieces about ¼ inch wide and place in a large bowl. Place the shredded meat into a large bowl. At this point, the pulled pork can be sauced and served immediately or can be covered and put into the refrigerator, sans sauce - for a day or two… if you can wait that long.

The Sauces

Given our propensity to dabble with sauces and the tug-of-war we have over sauce preferences we tend to offer a variety of sauces with which guests may smother their meat. We’ve included two great sauce recipes here – a Texas tomato barbecue sauce and the classic North Carolina vinegar and tomato that combines the best of both Carolina traditions.

Alas, because of space limitations, we’ve bypassed the whole genre of mustard based sauces, popular to the south of the Carolinas. No disrespect intended, these sauces are delicious as well. I must confess, we did try a version with an off the shelf Bull’s-Eye Original brand, which yielded excellent results. Here are two favorite sauces if you don’t have your own already:

North Carolina Sauce

Ingredients:
2 cups apple cider vinegar
½ cup ketchup
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2-3 dashes moonshine (optional) we use grappa.
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp crushed fresh garlic
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Juice of ½ lemon
3 Tbs. Tabasco sauce

Directions:
Combine the vinegar, ketchup, sugar, moonshine, Worcestershire, onion powder, garlic powder, crushed garlic, black pepper, cayenne, red pepper flakes, lemon juice and Tabasco sauce in a large saucepan. Bring to simmer over medium heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Cool. I halved this recipe and there was little left over, so that was prefect. As you can imagine, this sauce is quite tart. Add a little more ketchup if you want to mellow it out just a little.

Classic Cowboy Western Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup strong coffee (or a Stout beer)
1 cup tomato ketchup
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons molasses (or ½ cup brown sugar)
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:
In a medium saucepan cook the onion and garlic in the oil over medium heat until softened (about 5 minutes). Add the remaining ingredients, turn the heat to high, and bring to a rapid boil. Once the stuff comes to a boil, turn the heat down to medium and simmer until the sauce is reduces by about a third, or until it reaches whatever consitency you prefer. If you don't like the sauce chunky with onion pieces, feel free to give it a whir in a blender or food processor. For an added nuance, I added a teaspoon of sweet smoked Spanish paprika. Chipolte powder works as well for for that added layer of smoked flavor.

Serving

There are two ways to serve the sauce. You can either mix in one cup, and heat the mixture, stirring until the meat is just barely moist. Or you can have a selection of sauces on the table and let the guests apply the sauces themselves to their sandwiches. Personally, mixing and heating is the best way to integrate the sauces and the pulled pork. If you are only going to use one sauce, this is the way to go. You can also put all the sauces out and people use the sauces as ‘dipping’ sauces allowing them to mix and match as they desire.

Serve the pork piled on a bun with a side of coleslaw. Serve extra sauce on the side. If you are ever in downtown McMinnville, Ore. stop by Luigi’s Daughter on 3rd Street for a taste of how good this sandwich can be.

About Michael Sherwood

Michael Sherwood is an Oregon original - your modern day Renaissance man. He’s done more interesting jobs than most of us – FM radio personality, commercial logger, commercial fisherman, rock band promoter, neighborhood advocate, energy conservation expert, arts festival coordinator, software developer, non-profit executive, beer and wine guy and land use planner.

After 10 years developing software in Seattle, Mike moved back to Portland and was soon drafted to be the first Executive Director of the Oregon Brewers Guild, a fledgling non-profit trade organization, which he helped turn into one of the most dynamic small brewer associations in North America.

All the while he was managing the affairs of the states craft brewers, he was not so secretly a wine lover and worked providing marketing assistance to a local winery. Beverages are 'in his blood' as his family owned a beer and wine distributorship in the 60’s and 70’s in Roseburg.

Today Mike runs a wine sales, marketing and technology consulting business called Arbre which provides branding and sales support for wineries large and small. He has also created the Internets first truly virtual stealth restaurant and underground wine bar called Sub Rosa. We liked his mix of wine savvy and irreverent humor so much, we hired him to write for Avalon.

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