Family Reunion Barbecue

Barbecue has come a long way in the past twenty years or so. Barbecue is featured on prime time television, haute BBQ is found in swanky restaurants, and competition barbecue is as popular as ever. Barbecue is a growth industry of equipment, rubs, and sauces. There is nothing wrong with any of that, I love to see the celebration of barbecue. But I recently got to do a cook that stripped all of that away and reminded me of something. The real magic of barbecue happens in the VFW halls, community centers, and back yard covered dish suppers across the country every weekend. The smoke of family and community barbecues brings families together, connects generations, and refreshes aged bonds of friendship.

 

Who knew that the BBQ pork sandwich had so much power?

When my sister visited us in January, she had the wonderful idea that she and I should cook BBQ for our big family reunion in North Carolina. I thought it was a great idea because we hadn't been to one of these since Trevor was a baby. We used to meet every year or so at a farm house around Thanksgiving and share a meal with our extended family. Then my grandmother passed away, life got in the way, and we just didn't make it back.

My grandmother holding Trevor (yes, that same Trevor who is now a big high school football player).  She passed away before the reunion the following year.  Take advantage of your family while you have them.

This is in a very rural part of North Carolina where my brother, sister, and I often spent Summer vacations running barefoot and wild on our grandparents' farm. It's where I learned to shoot a rifle, split firewood by reading the grooves, and fish. It's also where had my first real taste of barbecue from the local volunteer fire department's community fund raiser. I fell in love with the piquant, vinegary taste of that chopped smoked pork and I was hooked for life. 

I have to admit that I was more apprehensive about cooking BBQ for our North Carolina family than I have been about cooking for any competition judge. Cooking for a judge is just about a number or result. This was about family - family that knows good BBQ and has specific ideas of what that should be.

People with a true love of BBQ have two kinds of family - family by blood and family by smoke. I didn't want to haul my kamados 6 1/2 hours across the Smoky Mountains and my sister didn't want to drag hers up 500+ miles from Florida. When barbecue people hear about other barbecue people in a stitch, they step up and provide.  My sister went to work on Facebook and through a cousin found a couple of strangers in Whiteville (20 miles from where we were staying) who had a Big Green Egg.  Randy and Bonita didn't know us from Adam's house cat but they opened up their home to us like family - family by smoke.

A common question in the BBQ forums is "I'm cooking BBQ for X event, how should I do that and get it there?"

So our game plan was this:

We had 60 people confirmed with several pending so we estimated for 80 people, we would need about 27 lbs of pork so we would need about 55 lbs of raw pork shoulders to begin with.  (Estimated 1/3rd pound per person, if we were doing two meats, I'd drop that estimate to a quarter pound per person for the pork.  80/3 = 26.6 lbs of cooked pork. Assuming you'll have about 50% shrinkage during cooking and processing, double that to 53.2 lbs).  Not ever wanting to run short, we planned to make more than needed to have a reserve batch.  If we didn't use it, it was already sealed and refrigerated so we could freeze it and eat at home later.

Wed night - Cook 40 lbs of pork butts in Knoxville overnight from 6pm to 6am.  Break it down, vacuum seal it, and refrigerate it and haul it to NC in coolers.  This would be our reserve batch.  If needed, we would heat the sealed bags in hot water and then freshen it up with a little rub serve.
Fri night - Cook 40 lbs of pork butts in Whiteville overnight from 8pm to 8am.  Pull at 8am Saturday morning, hold in a Cambro, transport to the community center in Lisbon and chop it onsite to serve as the first batches.
That gave us about 3 extra hours in case the Friday night butts ran longer.  If they weren't close at 6am, we planned to bump the Egg cooking temperature up to 300°F to speed it along.  

It worked out pretty close to how we planned.  Please excuse a lot of the pictures.  Once on the trip, we were only shooting with our mobile phone cameras and often in low light situations.

First round of four 10 pound pork butts.  I came home at lunch and prepped them.  Prep consisted of trimming, injecting with Chris Lilly's injection plus 1 cup of water, and then seasoned with....

We used my signature BBQ rub .  Note that we have updated that recipe increasing some of the sugars and adding a few new things.  

Even though I had plenty of kamado grills available, I cooked all 4 butts in one Large BGE with an adjustable rig because I wanted to make sure I wouldn't run into any problems using the same set up in Whiteville on Friday.  In theory, cooking 4 butts shouldn't take any longer than 1 butt as long as they aren't pushed up against each other.  But 4 butts in one cooker seemed crowded so I wanted to make sure. The Adjustable Rig set up worked perfect and the butts were done right at 12 hours, slightly more than 1 hour per pound.

The pork finished at 6am on Thursday so I was able to shred it and vacuum seal it before leaving for work that morning.

I serve my pork "naked" or without sauce, because I don't like covering it up with sauce.  But we like to give our guests options so we made a BBQ sauce bar.  Since this was North Carolina we had an Eastern NC vinegar sauce and a Western NC piedmont style sauce.  We also made our regular sweet, a sweet and spicy, and my sister made her acclaimed mustard BBQ sauce.  I highly recommend doing this when serving large crowds because everyone has their preferences about BBQ.

I came up with a great display idea for this.  I'll be doing a "DIY" post for that coming up shortly.

We drove over to Whiteville and Randy and Bonita couldn't have been nicer.  When I found that their Egg was surrounded by literally TONS of hardwood I took that as a harbinger of great things to come.  What better environment for a smoker?

The logs are actually for a wood furnace but still, it has to make the Egg feel happy.  

The only trouble we ran into was that the wire lead for the Auber controller/blower that I brought died an untimely death and my spare was 425 miles back at home.  No problem, we just went with the manual vents.  

We got the Egg loaded and then hung around to make sure it was stable.  We left around 9 and then came back around midnight.  The Egg was still humming along at 250F, just like we left it.  We switched the top rack out with the lower rack just to be on the safe side.

As you can see, I put a temp probe in one of the lower level butts and one on the top rack, just in case they finished at different times.  

Early in the morning and the butts were looking and smelling great.  They were mahogany and starting to form a nice bark.

Despite the horrible mobile phone's crappy camera and the blurriness, this is one of my favorite BBQ pictures I have ever taken.  It is my sister about 6am watching over the Egg and it looks like an old smoke house with the light beaming down through the smoke filled air.

This was another of my favorite shots - the sun peeking through the woods as night turns into morning and the Egg just doing its thing.

The internal temps bounced around a little at first.  One butt would be 10 degrees more cooked, then the other would catch up.  But towards the end, all 4 butts ended up finishing right about the same time.

Chopping the pork with my sister at the community center.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

It was a lot of work but it felt so great to see our family enjoying the fruits of our labor.  This cook meant more to me than any I can remember in the last 5 years.  It was special because of family but also because of getting to have my sister as my co-pitmaster.  It was like we were kids again, staying up all night having fun while all of the "adults" were asleep.  I will remember this cook forever.

Photo credit:  Ruth Grove

Cousin Mike told me a few stories about my granddad that I never knew.  For example, he gave Mike several acres to farm as his own.  He also shared some special memories of my grandfather from when his health was declining.  I never would have heard those precious memories if it wasn't for this reunion.  Photo Credit: Ruth Grove

We ended up with 80 of our family members attending and it couldn't have gone better.  Special times with family and friends treasuring old memories and making new ones - that is what BBQ is about.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

No family reunion is complete without a trip to remember those family members who are no longer with us, so we stopped by the cemetery.  I'm sad that Trevor never got to know his namesake, but it was good for him to hear the stories about his great grandfather.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

While in Elizabethtown, my parents, sister, and my family stayed at "The Rivah Getaway".  It's a private home for rent through Tripadvisor. Located on the banks of the Cape Fear River, this home is beautiful.  It's outfitted with a tremendous amount of deck space, fishing dock, grilling gazebo, canoe/boat dock, hot tub, and more.  It's a great place if you ever want to book a getaway vacation.  Just be sure to have a four wheel drive as the road in can get in really bad shape during the Spring rains.

View from the grilling area.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

View from the fishing dock.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

My dad and sister taking out the canoe for a trip on the river.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

View from the canoe.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

View from one of the deck levels.

Trevor and me playing foosball.  This picture cracked me up because with my arms like that, hunched over, and the hoodie, I look like a T-Rex with short arms, don't I?  Raawwr!

I discovered two of my favorite foods of all time in the Cape Fear area as a kid.  The first is my first bite of real BBQ.  The second is an ATW ("all the way") burger from Melvin's (aka "the pool hall") in Elizabethtown. ATW means that it comes with slaw, chili, onions, and mustard. The flavors combine in a unique way to make the best burger I have ever had.  Back in the day, my grandmother told me that they had their meat ground specially by the meat department at the Red and White grocery store in town.  The grind included some bread and possibly some sausage. 

So while we were there, we got some Melvin's burgers.

Yes, that is one mess of a burger but that's one of the things that makes it so insanely good.

What a fun cooking adventure that I got to share with my sister. I know it won't be another 15 years before I get back here. Does your family do a big reunion every few years?  Do you usually attend? 

Naked Cajun Wings

These wings are similar to dry Memphis style ribs - they use a highly seasoned dry rub and no sauce.  The recipe works whether you cook the wings low and slow on a stick burner - or - hot and fast on a kamado grill.  While I really enjoy grilled wings with a Buffalo sauce, I like these dry style wings for something different and you can always serve sauce on the side.

These were actually just an afterthought last weekend.  On the way home from our last BBQ contest last year, the door on "the Warthog" broke.  We had Curtis Mobile Welding (great service, reasonable prices if you're in the Knox/Blount area, shoot me an email if you need his number) come out and rehab the pit last week.

After he was done, I had to do some touch up paint and reseason those areas.  I figured that once I already had the cooker up and running from reseasoning, I might as well throw some wings into it.

It's simply wings seasoned with my Cajun rub.  I usually use this on beef but hadn't tried it on wings before.  Turns out it works well.  I thought these were quite spicy by my wife and adult son thought they were just slightly hot.  If you are heat adverse (what chile heads call "a big weenie"), I'd start with a half teaspoon each of the peppers and then increase to your tolerance. 

If you are smoking the wings low and slow, I like to use hickory wood.  When cooking them on a grill, I am usually happy with just the smoke from the coal, it is wood after all and poultry doesn't need a lot of smoke.  

Naked Cajun Wings

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 pounds chicken wings
• NMT Cajun rub
• spray butter

Instructions

1. Cut wings into drummettes and wingettes (discard or save the tips for stock).  Season liberally with the Cajun rub to cover all sides. Note:  The NMT Cajun rub recipe will give you a bit more than you need, you'll probably only use about 2-3 tablespoons of it. 
2. Low and Slow:  Place wings in your smoker at 225°F and cook for 2 hours.  Spritz the wings with the spray butter.  Flip them and spritz the other side. Continue cooking the wings until they reach an internal temperature of 180°F, about 1-2 hours.
3. Hot and fast:  Set up your grill for indirect cooking and preheat to 375°F.  Place the wings on your grill, cover and cook for 30 minutes.Spritz the wings with the spray butter.  Flip them and spritz the other side. Continue cooking the wings until they reach an internal temperature of 180°F, about 20-30 more minutes.
4. Remove and serve with your favorite accompaniments.  That's a fancy word for "other stuff". 

So why 180°F instead of 165°F?  I just like my dark meat cooked all of the way through and in my experience, a wing isn't going to dry out until North of 190°F. 

Like my fancy shaker?  They now sell lids with shaker holes already in them for Mason jars but in a pinch I'll go old school and just drill some holes in a metal lid. 

Seems weird having the stick burner fired up for just a handful of wings but like I said, it was already burning anyway.

Feel free to spritz more than once, especially in the 3-4 hour cook low and slow. 

Seasoned and ready to go on the Egg.  See? There is one of those bought shaker lids.

 

My indirect set up for the Egg was a spider rig, 13" stone, and a drip pan with an Adjustable Rig. You could do a plate setter instead with the same result. Or you could just do these indirect on a kettle style grill.

 

One of the advantages of dry style wings is you get a crispier skin.

I haven't tried this recipe cooking the wings over direct heat but since there is no sugar in this rub, that should work just fine as well.

A Quick Turkey Breast and the Adjustable Rig Multi-tiered Rack [Product Review]

There are many options for multi-tier rack systems for kamado grills (Big Green Egg, Grill Dome, Kamado Joe, etc).  From the simple, do it yourself raised grid to commercial options, they all do two basic functions - increase capacity and provide flexibility.  

In my opinion, the Adjustable Rig from Ceramic Grill Store is the most complete multi-tier set up.  I have wanted one for several years and I have finally pulled the trigger on buying one.  Well two, actually.

I bought one set up as a 3-tier rack with slide out trays for ribs and chicken at competitions and the other set up for the brisket and pork butts.   This theoretically will let you cook a KCBS competition with two kamado grills. These are just options of the basic unit which starts with a spider rig which holds a 13-inch pizza stone and a drip pan to create an indirect heat set up. 

This is the spider, pizza stone, and drip pan.  It creates the indirect heat without pushing the cooking grate up 3-4 inches like the plate setter does.

And then the basic Adjustable Rig core which holds any other options that you choose.  This set up takes more advantage of your existing cook space because if you used a plate setter legs up, your first cooking level is about 4 inches above the fire ring.  With this set up, you start right above the fire ring, using more of what you already have.

The "big meats" set up is two levels that will let me cook 4 pork butts at once, 2 briskets at once, or a brisket and two butts. 

The three tiered set up is even more flexible.  This can do my comp chicken and ribs but also works great for doing a lot of wings, smoked sausage, etc.

The rig rocked when my sister and I recently needed to cook a lot of pork but only had one large Big Green Egg at the time for an event that I'll post about later this week.  But it definitely made me a believer.

Excuse the cell phone picture, didn't have my camera with me.

In addition to the added capacity, these rigs also give you the flexibility of cooking direct at 4 different distances from the coals, so you can tailor how you want your direct cooks to go.

These units are made out of high quality 304 grade stainless steel.  They are built in the US and have quality workmanship that is evident in the welds.  My experience with them has been entirely positive and I would recommend these to anyone looking to use kamado grills for BBQ competition, catering, or just looking to get more out of their grill.  

The hardest part about buying an adjustable rig is figuring out what options you want or need, but don't panic.  Just give Tom and Terri Vogds a call and they will help you pick out the right set up without trying to "up sell" you.  In fact, they called me to make sure my order was right because they thought I might have ordered something that I did not need.

You can also use it in lieu of a plate setter even when you don't need multiple levels like I did for this quick and easy turkey breast that I made last weekend for the basketball playoffs.  You know, turkey isn't just for Thanksgiving.  Roast a breast on your kamado grill on the weekend and have sliced turkey for lunch meat for the week.  

This doesn't require a long brine or marinade, just a quick injection keeps the bird plenty moist.  The sweet and spicy seasonings balance out well and this is a great sliced turkey for general use like salads, sandwiches, or by itself.  I don't add any wood, the smoke from the lump coal was enough for me but if you cook this on a gas grill, I'd add some wood chips to a smoke box for flavor.

Quick and Easy Turkey Breast

Ingredients

• 5-7 pound fresh turkey breast
• 1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon garlic pepper seasoning
• 1 tablespoon Lawry's Seasoned Pepper
• Meat Church Honey Hog Hot
• Spray butter

Instructions

1.  Set up your grill for indirect heat and preheat it to 325°F.
2. Inject the turkey with the chicken broth every few inches on both sides.  
3. Flatten the turkey breast by pressing down firmly on the breast bone.  
4. Mix together the garlic pepper seasoning and Lawry's Seasoned Pepper.  Season the backside of the breast heavily with this mixture and then lightly on the top side.
5. Seasoning the turkey breast liberally with the Meat Church Honey Hog Hot.  You want a nice even layer as shown in the picture.
6. Place the turkey breast on the grill, close the dome lid, and roast.  Spritz with spray butter about once every hour to keep the skin moist and to help meld the rubs together into a golden crust.
7. Cook until the turkey hits an internal temperature of 157°F, right about 3 hours, and then remove.  Let the turkey breast rest for 15 minutes.  The temp will rise to 165°F during this time.
8. Cut off two breast lobes and slice evenly.  Pull the remaining meat from the breast bone. 

I stopped midway to give you an idea of how much seasoning I sprinkled on.  I didn't measure it, just shake it on.

Cooked this on middle level of the Adjustable rig but you could also do with a plate setter. 

Close it up and let the kamado do the work.

The trusty ChefAlarm shows that it was 120°F  1 hour and 45 minutes into the cook.

If I'm not eating it right away, I like to slice the lobes off like this, chill them and then slice them later.  It's easier to slice thinly by hand when it's chilled thoroughly.

Like I said, this is a good turkey breast for slicing up and using as lunch meat.  Plus, it's quick and easy without a lot of fuss.   I think people forget about turkey on the grill during the Spring and Summer which is a shame because it is awesome on a sandwich with bacon, fresh sliced Summer tomatoes, and a dash of honey-mustard.

And if you're looking to expand the capacity of your kamado grill, check out the Ceramic Grill Store's Adjustable Rig.  I highly recommend them. If you've been on the fence about getting one, don't wait as long as I did.

[Standard FTC Disclaimer] We received no compensation for this post, paid full price for our rigs, and have no affiliation with Ceramic Grill Store.

Quick Grilled Pork Chops

Normally I'm a thick pork chop guy.  I like my chops 1.25" thick or more so you can get a nice outer crust but still have tender juicy meat.  To me, a perfectly grilled monster sized pork chop is every bit as good as a steak.

But sometimes I just pick up a pack of regular pork chops for a quick weeknight meal. These regular sized chops are thinner, cheaper, a little quicker cooking, and they are easier to eat with your hands.  You want to cook them hot and fast so they don't have time to dry out.  The first way that I learned to cook these thinner chops is a popular one.  Marinate them in Italian dressing, season them with garlic salt and black pepper, and then grill quickly over a hot fire.  That is a classic and still works pretty dang well.

This is a recipe that we did this week just for something quick to eat and it turned out really well.  It uses a simple quick brine so the salt is more concentrated, don't soak it for more than 2 hours.  It was just the three of us so we did three chops, but if you add more, just add a 1/2 teaspoon of the pepper blend and 1 teaspoon of BBQ rub per pork chop. 

I love that the late afternoon sunlight is getting later every day!

Quick Grilled Pork Chops
www.nibblemethis.com

Ingredients

• 3 bone in pork chops
• 1 quart water
• 5 tablespoons kosher salt
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon Trade East Garlic Pepper Seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Pepper
• 1 tablespoon NMT Barbecue rub or other BBQ seasoning
• 1.5 tablespoons squeeze butter

Instructions

1. In a large container, whisk the water, salt, and sugar together until dissolved.  Place the pork chops into this brine and refrigerate from one to three hours.
2. Set up your grill for direct heat and preheat at medium high heat (400-450°F).
3. Mix together the Garlic Pepper Seasoning and Lawry's Pepper Seasoning.
4. Remove chops from the grill and pat dry. Season lightly on both sides with the pepper blend (Step 3).  Then season with the BBQ rub.
5. Clean and lightly oil your cooking grates then grill the pork chops for 4 minutes. Flip and brush the cooked side of the pork chops with the butter. 
6. Cook another 4 minutes and then check the internal temperature in the middle of the pork chops with a instant read digital thermometer.  If they are under 140°F, move to an area of indirect heat and roast another few minutes until 140°F. Once they are 140°f, remove, rest them for 5 minutes and serve.

The quick brine has higher salt concentration.  Normally it is 2 tablespoons per quart for a 6-8 hour brine time.  Her I go with 5 tablespoons per quart for a 1-3 hour brine time.  You can adjust to your needs.

I set up the Char-Broil Kettleman for direct heat but left that one small section with no coals in case I needed a "safe zone" to place the chops to finish cooking.  I used the new Kingsford Lump Briquetes for this batch.

I found this seasoned pepper at Gordon Food Services.  I like it for a quick way to boost flavor, texture, and color to rubs and sauces.  If you can't find it or the Garlic Pepper Seasoning, you can just mix 1 teaspoon garlic salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flake to substitute for both the Seasoned Pepper and Garlic Pepper Seasoning. It won't be the same but it will give you the base flavors that you're looking for.

This layer of pepper seasoning gives it your base flavors of salt, heat, and savory.

The layer of NMT BBQ rub adds the sweet flavor and builds on the existing base flavors.  If you don't want to make up a batch of my rub, use a commercial BBQ rub that has a sweet profile with a good bit of sugars in it.

When the temps hit 400-450°F, we're ready to rock and roll.

I have been quite impressed with this kettle style grill from Char-Broil.  I'll post a review of it in the next few days.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

Keep the grill lid closed while grilling these chops.

The TRU-Infrared™ grates help insure even cooking and prevents flare ups.

The butter baste keeps the surface from drying out and helps the seasonings meld with the pork.

After the 8 minutes, the chops looked done but I always double check using an instant read thermometer. about 8 degrees away from when I want to pull them from the grill.

So I just shuttled the chops to the little "safe zone" that I had set up when arranging the coals and leaving a blank space. This lets them roast (lid closed) for another few minutes to get up to the temp I was looking for.

The resting rack keeps the chops from laying on a flat surface, which would trap the heat and result in more moisture loss.

This was just a quick weeknight dinner, as evident by the high quality "Dixie China" :)  But it sure was delicious!

The design of the Kettleman is not your ordinary kettle grill layout, particularly the back side which looks like this.  I kept thinking that this looked familiar to me but I just couldn't place it....

Then it dawned on me...Dark Helmet from the movie Space Balls!  Dark Helmet photo credit IMDB

Dopplegangers aside, I have really been enjoying this Kettleman kettle grill and it is a bargain at $129 at Lowe's.  I'll write up a full review and post it later this week.

If you want to cook this on a kamado grill (Grill Dome, Big Green Egg, Primo, Kamado Joe, etc) or a gas grill, you'd use the same times and temps.  For a kamado you'll want a partial indirect set up like a half moon.  For a gas grill you will just do an indirect set up where all burners are on except one.  

[FTC Standard Disclaimer]  I received no compensation for this post. I have no affiliation with Trade East spices or Lawry's.  I am a member of the Char-Broil All Star team and received this grill as part of my sponsorship package.  However, that is for posting on their Char-Broil Live website (great grilling and recipe resource) and I'm under no obligation to post about them here.  I'm posting about this on my own volition because I like the grill.