Pulled Pork--Smoker, Take 2

What a better way to keep the smoker going is with a BBQ staple.  Pulled pork.  I know what everyone is thinking, why oh why am I starting with the big stuff.  Well, I guess that it goes with the ole credo of "You cant win if you don't play."  So here we go.

I started off with a beautiful 4 1/2 pound pork butt.  For those of you who don't know, a pork butt has nothing to do with the hind end of the pig.  It is actually the shoulder.  A pork butt (Boston Butt) is the same as a pork shoulder.  The rear end is the ham.  Also, many of you will be saying, 4 1/2 lbs?  That's too small.  Well you are right.  We actually had a pork shoulder blade.  Which is technically only part of the shoulder. 

I started this flavor experience off 2 days early by brining the pork.  Did it actually make a difference?  Honestly who knows.  I understand what it is for (a juicer and more flavorful meat), but did it actually do anything.  All I can say is that next time I am not going to bother.  Then I will know for sure.  And of course I will let you all know.  But for now, I brined.  And here is the recipe.

• 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup kosher salt
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes
• 1 tsp dried rosemary

Take 8 cups of water and all the ingredients and bring to a boil.  After that let it cool (don't want to cook the meat) and then let the pork soak.  I left it in for almost 2 days.


After letting the brine do its business, I brought it out on Sunday to get it ready to smoke.  The first thing that I did was to dry off the pork and get the rub ready.  A good rub is everything.  If you do anything right when smoking meat, you want to get the rub right.  This is what will create that wonderful bark on the outside of the meat.  It gives it the flavor and is in my opinion the most important part of the process.

I put together a wonderful  concoction of spices and trust me it smelled great.

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup paprika  (I use a sweet Hungarian style)
• 2 tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp cayenne
• 4 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp thyme powder
• 2 tsp sage
• 2 tsp coriander

Mix this all up and you have yourself a great pork rub.  Now that the rub is ready, we need to get it on the pork.  To do this, I first covered the entire thing with French's yellow mustard.  This doesn't add any flavor, but it does give a good base for the rub to hold onto and keeps the meat moist.  Now, I know what some of you are saying.  How can it not add flavor.  Trust me it doesn't.  Its a nice trick.  Try it.  After that, I just sprinkled the rub liberally over the pork.  Make sure that it is covered and in all the nooks and cranny's. 

Now it went back into the fridge for about 6 hours.  Yup, we are still not ready to smoke.  No one ever said that smoking was quick.  Once you have gave the meat time to absorb the rub, we need to bring it back to room temperature before putting it in.

Now we must put our attention into the smoker.  For this meat, I used a combination of both hickory and apple.  Neither are too strong and them compliment each other very well.    I also used a combination of water and apple juice for the water tray.  We got the temperature up to 215 and in went the meat.

This is where once again my mistakes came.  I cooked for 2 hours at this temp and didn't touch it.  This was the smart part.  It allowed me to create a wonderful bark and set the tone of the dish.  After that, I sprayed it down with apple juice every 30 min.  This kept the meat super juicy, but it extended the cooking time by a huge amount.  What should have only taken about 8 hours took over 10.  And guess what, It still wasn't done. 

This is where I am going to end this post, but I will say one important thing.  It will still taste great, it will be moist, but don't mess with it.  Because if you do, it wont  be done all the way and will be tough.  Trust me on this.  I have made this mistake twice  now and will not make it again.

Got a Smoker for my Birthday!!

Well folks, I finally used the smoker that my wife got me for my birthday.  I have cooked many a thing, and have tried my hand at light smoking on my gas grill, but never have actually fully smoked anything.  So in the tradition of many a newb cook, I immediately went for the most difficult thing known to man.  A Brisket.  That's right, Brisket.  Delicious if done properly, but chewy, dry and tough if done wrong.  What was I thinking...Delicious beef, that's what I was thinking.  So here is a tale of beef, smoked wonderful beef.  (I will apologise now for the lack of pictures.  I am new to this, but I wont forget next time.)

I began my smoking adventure on Saturday at work, wondering exactly how I was going to cook it.  After much investigation I decided to go with a Texas Style Brisket recipe that I found on http://www.smoker-cooking.com/.  After coming home, I began to assemble the herbs and spices.  I put together the dry rub, and then followed up with the mopping sauce.  I wont bore you with the details, but it smelled wonderful.  For the rub and sauce recipe, go to the above web site and give it a try.  I then lavishly coated the beef with the rub and wrapped it up in plastic for a nice rest in the fridge. 

The next morning, I began to get everything ready.  I got the smoker out to the deck and began to get it preheated.  Using mesquite wood, I brought the temperature up to 225.  At this point, in went the brisket. 

 I will speed up the time here a bit, for the next 5 hours we smoked.  Mopping the brisket every hour till it was done. Now many of you might be thinking, 5 hours??!?! That's it?  Yup that's right.  Remember I am a newb at this.  First, I was only using a brisket flat, not a full brisket.  Second, the recipe said to smoke it for 4-6 hours for a full brisket, so i adjusted a bit and went with it.  After 4 hours of smoking, I wrapped it in foil (so it would not dry out) and cooked for another hour.  I checked the temp and it showed 145.  Medium rare.  Wonderful.  Pulled it out of the smoker and let it rest for 30 minutes.  My wife had the sides put together, an excellent soft corn cake ( I will give you all the recipe someday), and a homemade potato salad.  I sliced the brisket (against the grain, that's important.  If you slice it with the grain, it will be chewy not tender).  We plated everything and dug in. 

Flavor:  Spot on.  Spicy, smoky, and delicious.  The chili powder and paprika combined wonderfully and gave the meat quite kick.  Almost overpowering, but not quite.

Moisture:  Excellent.  By keeping it mopped every hour and making sure that the water bowl was full, the brisket was not allowed to dry out.

Tenderness:  Well, cant get everything right, now can we.  Here is where I made my mistake.  The recipe said to cook till 190 degrees.  I thought that it couldn't be right, medium rare is 145.  No way did I want to over cook the brisket.  So here I am, total newb in smoking, thinking that I knew more than a competition smoker.  So I pulled it out and sliced it up.  Guess what, he was definitely right.  It was tough.  Not horrible, but most certainly not fork tender.  After a bit more research, I discovered that brisket needs to get to 185 to 200 degrees to fully tenderize.  I wont make that mistake again. 

Well there you have it folks, my first misadventure in smoking.  Not bad, but not great.  The main thing is that you learn from what you do.  And next time, I will take pictures.  :)

Ryan Braun's Tavern and Grill

Last night my wife and I ventured out to Lake Geneva to check out a new Italian restaurant in the area.  Ryan Braun's Tavern and Grill. My first impression was that it is a nice looking place, kind of a cross between an Olive Garden and a upscale bar.  Since that it is marketed as an Italian eatery/Tavern, I guess that I am pretty much spot on.  Atmosphere seemed pretty upbeat and vibrant and the place still had a newness about it.  Although slightly busy, Friday night and all, we were seated immediately.  This is where the fun began.

We were greeted by Chad, our waiter, who while very nice had an odd air about him.  Turns out this was his second night there.  I didn't ask, but I would wager that this was his second night waiting tables as well.  Eager, but not the best. 

We ordered our drinks as well as an appetizer of Beef Carpaccio.  While waiting on these, we were brought out some Italian style bread along with a dipping tray with EVOO and Balsamic.  I have had olive oil dipping before, but not with balsamic.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It was excellent.  One of the best parts of the meal. 

With hardly a wait, our appetizer came out.  The beef was prepared excellently, and a small bit of baby spinach with a vinaigrette dressing, topped with a bit of sliced Parm accompanied it.  The beef tasted wonderfully, but the dressing was entirely too thick and weighted down the spinach.  Unfortunately this left some leaves soggy and others dry.  One thing that usually is part of a dish like this is capers, and they were solely missed.  Overall about a 3 out of 5.

Our next course quickly followed.  I had a bowl of homemade clam chowder and my wife received a goat cheese salad.  What can i say.  I love clam chowder and this did not disappoint.  You could tell the fact that it was made in house by the creaminess of the potatoes and extremely flavorful clams.  While it could have used a bit more pepper, the fresh thyme was an interesting and pleasant surprise.  4 out of 5.

My wife's goat cheese salad was the starof the night.  Herb crusted, slightly pan fried goat cheese over a bed of spinach leaves.  A light oil based dressing was drizzled over the top and it was garnished with dried cranberries.  My wife only allowed me to taste a small amount, but I would come back just for this salad.  5 out of 5.

Our main courses came next.  My wife ordered one of their artisan pizzas, Margherita,  and I ordered the Capellini all' Amatriciana.  My wife's pizza was a first glance a standard Margherita, but after tasting it, we were proven different.  The basil looked slightly wilted (it was cooked afterall), but it had their balsamic drizzled over it.  And while my wife is usually nuts over that stuff, she said that it totally overpowered the entire flavor base.  It unfortunately ruined what would have been a wonderful dish.  2.5 out of 5.

My pasta dish was combination of angel hair pasta, pancetta, mussels, and a sweet tomato sauce.  Overall a very big dissapointment.  Each of the components were cooked properly, but they did nothing to combine them together.  It was painfully obvious that the both the mussels and the pancetta was cooked seperately from the sauce and while they were tasty.  They did not combine well.  And the kicker was that they had the pancetta cubed so large that they did not lose any of thier trademark saltiness.  Every bite was like chewing on a salt block.  You had to ensure that you only got a small piece of pancetta with every bite of pasta.  This way it was actually delicious, but if you were not careful, you got a big reminder of why this dish was bad.  1 out of 5.

Lastly came desert.  We started out strong and ended strong.  My wife recieved a Chocolate torte, with a thick chocolate ganache.  Too heavy for me, but the only word that she could describe with was divine.  I was brought a piece of Tiramasu.  Not the best, but a close second.  If only the regular chef could cook as well as the pastry chef.  Heaven.  5 out of 5.

Overall, not a bad place, worth a second visit, but not the kind of place for a special night.  Luckily for us it wasnt.  Ryan Braun, you have an opportunity to make a great restaurant, but it needs work.  2.5 out of 5.

Welcome!!!

I would like to say welcome.  This is the inaugural post for this foodie blog based out of SE Wisconsin.  I will be reviewing restaurants from the area, as well as my travels. I will also share recipes, mishaps, and other tidbits of my culinary adventures.  I am in no way a trained chef, but I like to think of myself as a pretty decent self-taught cook.  Sit back, grab a snack, and lets take off on our foodie trip.