pull my pork!

Good pulled pork has to be one of the most satisfying meat dishes in the world. I often find myself dreaming of those beautiful strands of juicy, smokey pork mixed with bits of spicy “bark.” Beautiful moutainscapes of steaming pulled pork topped with coleslaw snow-caps. A place where North-Carolina style red sauce flows like a river…. mmmmm. After living in North Carolina for a while I really fell in love with pulled pork. Some of my fondest food memories were had in small BBQ shacks around Gastonia and Charlotte. I recommend that every teenager should move to NC for high-school because pulled-pork sandwiches go perfect with reckless-abandon. Ah, those were the days!

I may really love this delicacy but I don’t get to enjoy it very often. Those BBQ-shacks seem to be hiding from me on this side of the ocean. So left with no other choice I set out to make my own. First problem, what the heck do I ask for at the butcher? Cuts of meat are different in pretty much every land. I wanted a Butt (no, it doesn’t come from that end of the pig) but the butcher had no idea what that was. Thankfully Picnic was something that they know here. To my surprise they are typically about 6 kg. Pigs must be bigger here. I thought that was a bit big for my first try, especially since I don’t have a freezer to hold any leftovers. I ended up ordering a nicely trimmed and de-boned half picnic, weighing in at 2.2kg (4.85 lbs.)

For the first cook I decided to pretty much stick to some standard recipes out of Smoke and Spice. It was time to say hello to “the Renowned Mr. Brown.” I slightly altered the Southern Succor rub in the recipe by adding some onion powder and garlic powder.

Brasschaat Succor rub (altered Southern Succor rub recipe):

• 1/4 cup black pepper (fresh ground)
• 1/4 cup mild paprika
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp salt
• 2 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder

The pork was well rubbed with this mixture and placed in a ziplock bag. He hung out in the fridge overnight with the hops and yeast. The next day I started the fire (Minion method fire with a 3/4 full ring of briquettes) around 8am and took the meat out of the fridge. After another roll around in the rub I let the pig rest until the smoker was up to temp.

The swine went on the smoker at 9:10 am and in typical fashion it started to rain. Not wanting to get too wet, I decided to quickly take the burning smoker apart and move it under the awning at the back door. From there on out it was a pretty simple cook. One of the big questions with this kind of barbecue is, to mop or not? Seeing as I was using the water pan in the smoker with water (as opposed to dry, or with sand or terra-cotta pot coasters as some recommend) I did not need to use a mop to add moisture, but I did want to use it to help add flavor. So I only mopped the meat a few times starting a couple hours into the cook.

mop (altered Southern sop recipe):

• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp black pepper (fresh ground)
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tbsp paprika
• 1/2 tbsp cayenne
• 2 tbsp remaining rub

Since this was a somewhat small hunk of meat by pulled pork standards, I took a rough guess that it would be on the smoker for about 7-8 hours until it reached the magic “pullable” tenderness. Seeing that dinner was planned for 7:30 pm this seemed like ample time. Unfortunately I suck at these types of estimations. As we approached dinner time I ramped up the smoker temperature from the 110-120C range (230-250F) up to the 140-150C range (280-300F) to try to finish the pork faster. After 10.5 hours of cooking I had to take the meat off the smoker.  Now I was aiming for an internal temp of around 87-93C (190-200F), but I had to pull the meat off at 84C (183F). The real test isn’t the internal temp but taking your temp probe or a skewer and seeing that it slides into the meat easily, like butter. Mine was almost right there, but I couldn’t wait another 45 minutes or so. Fortunately the pork did pull apart very nicely and easily.

To accompany the meat I whipped up some coleslaw, some cornbread, and a salad. The coleslaw was also a first for me. I was so used to buying it back in the US that I never bothered trying to make it before. I have to say that is was quite tasty! The cornbread was again baked on the OTP. This time I was able to improve the cooking technique and get a very nice browned top on the cornbread, however the new recipe I tried out was not so great. It was just too darn dense. Next time I will use the recipe I used the first time and just cut back on the sugar… and perhaps use a touch more cornmeal.

Of course I also had to make up some Carolina red sauce. I used the recipe straight from the Smoke & Spice cookbook. I have to say though that I remember most sauces in North Carolina being just a touch thicker and spicier, but that was a long time ago.

The final accent to the meal was a bottle of Hop Nest IPA. The hops were able to cut through the spice, vinegar and smoke and really worked out nicely.

Of course I didn’t take any good photos of the final product, so you’ll have to put up with a slightly blurry photo of some of the leftovers.

All in all I was highly impressed with my new found pork pulling skills (please don’t take that out of context). I think everyone really enjoyed it but the black pepper spice may have been too much for them. The cornbread wasn’t so much of a success. The meat was absolutely fantastic! Super moist, full of smokey flavor, wonderful rich spice notes and melt in your mouth tenderness. I will definitely be cooking up more of this. Once we get a freezer it will be stocked with pulled pork for those times when I have THE craving.

For more photos of the cook click on the photos or here

Dear Santa,

Christmas is near. Have you written your letter to Santa yet? I’ll be writing mine soon, but first I have to figure out what I will ask for. The list of possible choices is too long.

For the fiery side of life:

• Pro Q Cold Smoke Generator
• 4 griller’s joy (german site or find the US site here)
• a good cast iron skillet
• DigiQ II automatic temp controller for my WSM
• permission to cook all meals outside

For the beery side of life:

• 27 liter electric canning kettle (To use as an HLT or as boil kettle for smaller batches)
• 20 liter french oak barrel or 32 liter chestnut barrel (found a good deal on them)
• 50 liter brew pot (sometimes you just need to brew a bigger batch)
• march pump
• a bottle of 1980 De Dolle’s Speciaal Brouwsel
• a job at a small brewery

hmmm, perhaps that last one sounds the best. Now I just need to write Santa a very convincing letter.

So what are you thinking about asking the big guy for? Anything beer, brewing, fire, or cooking related? Come on, let’s hear from you. I know there aren’t a whole lot of readers of this fine blog, but I’ll be sad if only my wife responds (he says, setting himself up for failure).

Alvinne homebrewfest 2009

On the 7th of november was the Alvinne homebrew gathering. 12 homebrewers (myself included) served 20-something beers. This is the event I mentioned that I brewed the two versions of Hop-Nest IPA for. The event was a smashing success! The tasting room at Alvinne was quite full of thirsty homebrewers and non-brewing-beer-lovers. I didn’t know what to expect from the event so I was pleasantly surprised to see such a good crowd.

There were many good beers there, so my taste-buds were happy. Glenn also whipped up some great soup. Romanesco-Cauliflower soup with Melchior, mussels and a touch of pesto drizzled on top. You can find the recipe here. Back to the beer though. The highlights for me had to be Uli’s geuzes. If you don’t know who Uli is, he is one of the most passionate and creative beer lovers you’ll ever meet. He spends much of his time roaming the pajottenland buying up lambic from the different produces. The rest of the time he is back in Germany blending these lambics into wonderful geuze or aging them with different fruits, dry-hops, or other interesting ingredients. Perhaps my favorite of the day was a geuze dry-hopped with East Kent Goldings. Really spectacular! Uli said he also dry-hopped a geuze with Nelson Sauvin hops for a bar in Italy, but forgot to save any bottles for himself. I sure hope he does that again as NS is now my favorite hop.

Speaking of Nelson Sauvin, Hop-Nest was very well received. It was nice to hear people commenting positively about the beer, not knowing that it was mine. Its a great feeling when someone says “hey, you gotta try this beer” and you can say “thanks. I brewed that.” The Brettanomyces Clausenii version was not as well received as its more normal brother. On its own I think that it is quite nice, but when stacked up next to the regular version, it pales in comparison. Its hard to pin-point, but it seems to be missing something. It will be very interesting to see how it progresses though.

Thanks to all the homebrewers who participated in the event and all the enthousiastic beer drinkers who consumed our brews. Of course Glenn and Davy deserve a big thanks for putting this event on and putting homebrewing in the spotlight, something that doesn’t happen too often here.

If you are interested in knowing more about some of the beers that were served and seeing many more photos (including one of me with way too much hair and apparently no chin) check out William Roelens blog (in dutch only)

grillin’ up some cornbread

As any good american does, I crave me some good old cornbread now and then. Unfortunately this fine treat knows no friends here in the old world. Cornmeal is not a common commodity in Belgium. However, a couple weeks ago I bumped into some cornmeal at the supermarket on a shelf of clearance items. Apparently there are not enough Americans on this side of Brasschaat to keep the limited choice of US specific products in rotation. The other Delhaize in town doesn’t seem to suffer this problem as everytime I am there I hear at least two American families. From the clearance shelf I picked up one bag of cornmeal and a couple jars of molasses. The molasses will either finds its way into some cookies or into some beer.

Now I know it’s simple, but I have never made cornbread before so I had to consult the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (We have the newest edition but I wish we had the 1968 version that my mother has. 60’s food photography had a certain something that I find nice, odd but nice). Anyways, the recipe for basic cornbread was very simple:

1 cup flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

2-3 tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt

2 1/2 tbsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 cup cooking oil

Long story short, I threw that all together and poured it into a greased pan. Yes I know, all you cornbread purists are shouting “you have to use a hot skillet you idiot!” Well, simple answer is that I don’t have one (but I do want one). The pan went right in the middle of the cooking grate with the coals stacked up on two sides of the grill. The temp was right around 200C (392F). After about 15 minutes on the grill I started checking with a toothpick to see if it was done. I didn’t keep the time well but I think total cook time was about 20 minutes. I was worried that maybe the sides of the bread that were facing the fire would have over cooked but it ended up with a nice even golden brown on the bottom and sides. Unfortunately, the top of the cornbread did not become nicely golden. I guess, like my first pizza on the grill, I need to get the bread higher into the dome of the kettle where the air is warmer.

Why exactly would you want to do this on the grill?… well, why not? I like the idea of baking with wood or charcoal, it just sounds right to me. It will also be nice to have extra dishes to round out a meal that I can just through on the grill while I’m doing a long cook. Plus, a small touch of smoke can do wonders in baked goods. This time I didn’t use any wood, just neutral coconut briquettes, but I plan on adding a touch of wood next time.

The flavor of the cornbread itself was alright, but could be much better. It definitely wasn’t bad, just a bit mild. The flavor needs to be kicked up a notch next time. The cornbread I know gives you a heart melting dose of american home cooking, this one just taunted me. The amount of cornmeal needs to be kicked up and the sugar kicked down, or out. Maybe I’ll have to try the recipe I saw on the homesick texan (a very delicious source of recipes that I just now discovered). I’ll probably also add about a cup of corn kernels to the batter next time…. and that next time may be very soon… I still have the craving! Oh, and I like my cornbread with hot melted Lee Morgan

duck, duck, beer

This past weekend my extended family in-law took their yearly trip down to a big rental house in the Ardennes. Despite there being 35 in-laws, it is always a good time. A really beautiful area with typical grey stone buildings set amongst green rolling hills. Being november it usually rains most of the time we are there, but in that setting I don’t mind. Mrs. Smoking Bottle thinks its all a big grey depressing mess but I tend to see the pint glass as half full… at least there I do.

Each year I try to plan one thing for the family during our weekend stay. Either a brewery visit or a good charcoal cooked meal. This year I decided on another brewery visit rather than trying to keep an 11 month old girl, who is practicing walking, away from daddy’s fire… and cooking for 30+ people is a lot of work. Also, since the in-laws are wine people, I take it upon myself to try to educate these lost belgian souls about their beer heritage. There are a lot of breweries in Wallonia, unfortunately the area that we visit has fewer options. So far I have taken the in-laws to Achouffe, Fantome and this year Brasserie Les 3 Fourquets.

 

Les 3 Fouquets resides in an inviting old stone farm house in Courtil, about 5km from the Luxemburg border. It was started up by one of the founders of Brasserie D’Achouffe after the sale of that brewery to Duvel Moortgaat (I think thats how it went). The modern shiny brewhouse is quite small and squeezed into one small section of the rather large farm house. The main part of the building usually houses the restaurant and bar. I say usually because they currently have no cook. They plan on re-opening the restaurant again next summer but they need to find a head chef. Currently they produce only one beer, Lupulus, but in the past have dabbled with a few others. You can definitely taste and smell the Achouffe heritage in Lupulus. The brewery began with the Achouffe strain of yeast, but over time the yeast has somewhat mutated (according to Julien, our guide). Cloudy light orange brew with a yeast and citrus nose. Grassy, lightly citrus hop aroma but not aggressive. Pretty well balanced in the mouth with sweet pale malt and enough grassy bitterness to stay interesting and dry enough to be refreshing. I personally think that this would be a brilliant beer if it was around 5-6% ABV instead of the 8.5% it is.

Last year I opted for the cooking route instead of a brewery tour. With the help of one of the uncles, we cooked up duck breasts for 32 people. We didn’t yet have a daughter so we had room to pack up the WSM and take it down to the Ardennes with us. The duck was lightly rubbed with brown-sugar, coarse salt, fresh ground pepper, sage and a dash each of onion powder, garlic powder, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. Sounds like a lot but it was lightly rubbed on. The fillets were placed in the smoker fat side up for just over an hour (till about 115F internal). They were cooked over lump charcoal with a chunk of pearwood and a touch of hickory chips. After being smokedthe meat was thrown fat side down on the gasser and brushed with a glaze made from beer jelly (homemade with some of my homebrew) and butter. Served with cranberry sauce, pears poached Boon kriek and croquettes. We also made a very nice sauce with onion sauteed in some of the trimmed duck fat, some cranberries, a good slosh of Boon kriek and an unhealthy amount of cream. Run through a sieve and lightly drizzled onto the glazed duck breasts.

That was the most meat I have cooked in one time on the WSM. We only served half a breast per person but in order to fit 16 breasts on I had to take a grate from one of my kettles in order to add a third cooking surface in the smoker (on feet made from stainless steel threaded rod and some nuts and washers). That worked well and I had room to spare! I did try to take some photos of the process. Unfortunately while plating up the food for all those people we forgot to snap a photo of the sliced up duck with all the trimmings. Maybe next time. You can see photos of that cook here.

 

When the moon hits your eye

Like a big pizza pie, that’s amore!

Last night I decided to test out the new pizza stone. For my first trial I just wanted to take a look at the cooking technique itself so I bought a pre-made pizza dough. I didn’t want to put in all the effort of making dough and sauce and then end up burning it. For the sauce I just used a good quality passata. Add some mozerella and some chorizo and there you have it.

As I said, I’ve been wanting to do this for a while so I have been reading up on the different ways to do pizza on the  grill. The keys I picked up were that you want a scorching hot grill and you need to try to get the temperature above the pizza high enough that the toppings will cook before the bottom of the crust burns. There are some pretty interesting setups I have seen posted on forums like TVWB and Pizzamaking.com. What I decided to do (and had seen from others) was to try the get the pizza as high up into the dome of the lid as possible, since that is where the air is the hottest. This should help the toppings cook well. To do that I took the charcoal ring out of my WSM and placed that on top of the cooking grate with the pizza stone on top of that. With a full chimney of briquettes lined around the perimeter of the kettle the air should be pretty hot up there. I assumed the stone would still heat up pretty well in this configuration. Please excuse the poor quality photos. Mrs. Smoking Bottle was away with the camera and all I had was my iPhone.

I kept checking the color of the crust by looking through the vent holes with a flashlight. I took the pizza off when the crust looked like it was going to start getting too dark. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite long enough for the toppings. They definitely weren’t underdone but I was hoping for a touch more browning of the cheese. Total cook time was about 9 minutes. From what I’ve been reading a lot of people say that ideally it should be around 4 or 5 minutes. Sounds like I’d really need to crank up the temp more with more charcoal. I don’t really care about the time though. It seems that the faster you cook the pizza the less influence the grill would have on flavor. I want to pick up some of that fire-kissed flavor and aroma. Just a guess but 10 minutes sounds like it would accomplish that better than 4 minutes. I think the setup worked out really well. Now I just need to get some more heat on top of the pizza. Perhaps I need to stack up the coals closer to the outside than I did. Suggestions are welcome.

What are you looking at?

When this blog was started, I thought that most of the posts would be about barbecue. Afterall it is easier and faster to tame that firey passion then it is to scratch the brewer’s itch. There is also a problem of volumes. I do not brew that often since I am usually solely responsible for the disposal of said beer and I also have a commercial beer buying habit. It is great to have a cellar stocked full of goodies covering a far greater range of styles than I could ever brew. However, The Smoking Bottle has been leaning more towards the Bottle and less towards the Smoke. This got me thinking about who is reading this (besides the ones that feel obligated to endulge in my fantasy world) and where their interests lie.

If you have a spare moment (if you have read this far then you do) please take part in the following poll.

feeling the funk

No, not that funk. Just a quick brewing update. I have probably mentioned before that I want to get more experimental with my homebrew and walk on the wild side of fermentation. From now on most of my brews will be fermented, at least in part, by critters such as Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus rather than traditional Sacchromyces strains. To start this new love affair off, back at the end of April I racked batch one of New Addition to secondary and added a smack pack of Wyeast Lambic Blend . Being impatient, I popped it open and took a sample. It’s now at 1.014 and has a very light brett character with hints of sour cherry and some cola, but overall the bugs have not had too much influence yet. It definitely is going down the right path, but the path seems to be long. At least a pellicle just started to form. That will be fun to watch (for a beer geek like me).

Hop Nest batch #2 was brewed last Sunday. The recipe was modified from the original test batch. Rather than 100% Munich I added a touch of Aroma malt. The hopping schedule stayed the same but I slighlty lowered the amount of Amarillo and upped the amount of Nelson Sauvin. So where’s the funk? Well I split the batch into two fermenters. One received the same US-05 yeast as the original recipe but the second fermenter received a large pitch of Wyeast Brettanomyces Clausenii. This is supposed to be the “cleanest”, and possibly fastest of the Bretts. I hope it will give me some of the pineapple aroma that is can produce, although the reported success of this seems to be spotty. After 48 hours I wasn’t seeing any activity in the Brett fermenter. I read from several people that they were seeing lag times of 3 days, but I was still worried. Thankfully I was greeted by an enthousiasticly bubbly airlock when I came home from work on the third day. Reports say that this brett can ferment out a beer in 5 weeks. I hope thats true because I intend on serving this beer at the Alvinne International Homebrew happening on Nov 7th, next to the “normal” version.

Further, I plan on starting with the Grand Funk… Lambics. I figure each year I will try to brew one Lambic and then in a few years I can start to play with blending a Geuze. Also in the pipes is a series of 100% Brett beers with all the other Brett strains I received from Chad. Maybe my imperial stout will also get the funky beat with some critters and oak thrown in after primary fermentation.

- The Funk Soul Brewer

and the winner is…

There is something nice about waking up early, getting into a car and setting off on a day of beer discovery. The world just seems a little brighter, friendlier and tastier. First I was off to Heule, near Kortijk, for the “introduction day” for the 2009-2010 brewing class at Brouwerij Alvinne. I think more educational institutions need to cater to the needs of the humble student like Glenn does. No sooner had I walked in the room than I was handed a beer. 9am is not too early is it?. We had a thorough tour of the delightfully small brewery and then got down to the serious business, tasting a range of Alvinne beers. Now don’t get the wrong idea, we will be learning the intricacies of the brewing process, but for this first lesson we had to learn what Brouwerij Alvinne is about, and that needs to be tasted.

Off to my next destination, Kessel-lo (near Leuven). Today was the first gathering of the Vlaamse Hobbybrouwers Forum. Organizer Marc put together a well planned event. Again, the beer samples were tasty and the beer talk flowed freely. Unfortunately I had missed all of the early activities since Heule and Kessel-lo really aren’t close to eachother. This event also included a homebrew competition which I had entered. The judges were locked away in a tent in the corner of the yard, away from prying eyes. We knew that the beers must have been good because it seemed to be taking the judges longer than planned. So, who ending up winning? Well, the winner of the first “Flemish Homebrewer’s Forum” homebrew competition was an American, me! The winning beer was Hop Nest which you will be familiar with if you follow this blog. Besides the obvious prestige, I won a 6-pack of Westvleteren (always nice to have) and a stack of good looking beer books to add to my library.  Unfortunately I had to then immediately leave. It would have been nice to stick around and get to know everyone and their beers a little better, but the timing just wasn’t right and I wanted to get back to see my baby. Many thanks to Marc and everyone who helped put together a wonderful event.

I have to say that today was a very good day.

a well brewed vacation

Time to get back at it. Summer vacation is over and there are many things to be grilled and brewed. Vacation was family oriented so there is not a whole lot of news on the BBQ or Beer front, not to say that it was completely void of these activities, but it was not the focus. Family was the priority. However, my brother was able to show off his rib making skills. He received his WSM in March and he’s been smoking up a storm since then. I have to say that his ribs are pretty darn good. I still have yet to master the rib myself. The only outdoor cooking I did on holiday was a stack of Delmonico steaks. Turned out really nice. If anything, I would say they were too juicy… is that possible?

While in the states I picked up a couple of useful accessories to help fuel my charcoal obsession. A new Maverick ET-73 wireless dual-probe thermometer will allow me to see the temp of the meat I am smoking and also the temperature of the cooker itself while I am working around the house. To help protect the probe wires from being crimped and damaged I also bought some probe eyelets from the BBQ guru to install on the WSM. Lastly, before I left on vacation I bought a pizza-stone to use in my new grill. I can’t wait to try it out. There will surely be posts on that in the near future.

On the beery side, there were many a fine brew enjoyed on vacation. Just to name a few of the standouts, Jolly Pumpkin E.S. Bam, New Holland Oak-aged Dragon’s Milk and Southern Tier Mokah. I also met up with TimO from Tastybrew.com over at The Michigan Brewing Company. I brought him some tasty treats from Belgium as well as some homebrew. All was well received by the man who just a few days before had shattered his leg in 6 or so pieces falling from a ladder. He laid off the pain meds just so he could meet up and have some beer. Now that is dedication!

Thats about it really for the Smoking Bottle portion of my vacation. The rest was baby photo after baby photo… and we loved it!