hands up for pork?

[Tiny]

Right chaps,
It has all gone slightly wrong. Visited skilled butcher this pm to purchase shoulder for first proper lo and slo tomorrow. Sadly he had sold out and would not have any till Sat, devastated and in need of something he offerred me a hand of pork..

Well I decided to go for it, as the only sunny day of the year is forecast tomorrow. He is 2.5kg, is now covered in a standard rub and waiting his turbn tommorrow.

Intend to applewood smoke him for several hours, foild and give him around 8 in total. Bloody meat thermometer is somewhere in royal mail mayhem so will need to use the force.....

Any of you done hands before and can add extra advice to my plan?

am hoping lots of hours to a ropey pork joint will do something good!

Cheers
Tiny

[keith157]

Basically the hand and spring of pork is the shoulder(butt) with the front leg still attached. It's a bit fiddely to take the leg off, but it should come out cleanly from the shoulder blade bone, It's a ball & socket joint, if you can remove the leg part it will even up the shape for ease of cooking. Stick the leg bit in to cook as well, ideal for snacking on.

[Tiny]

Keith,
I think I only have the leg bit, it is shaped like a leg of lamb so I think an even cook could be tricky.

left it in the rub last night and have come down this morning to find things have gone a touch moist, the rub seems to have "melted" into asticky syrup, is this normal?

think this is a "what will be will be session today!
Cheers
Tiny

[aris]

If it is meat, it will cook fine and taste great.

[RobinC]

left it in the rub last night and have come down this morning to find things have gone a touch moist, the rub seems to have "melted" into asticky syrup, is normal?

If the rub has got salt in it then it will draw moisture out of the meat turning the rub into a paste, this is fine

[keith157]

Also if it contained sugar then the enzymes or other techie bits in the meat will cause the sugars to dissolve as well. (Toby's guide to competition ribs)

[Tiny]

OK Chaps,
Like the cricket today here are the low and highlights.

Started lovely, 125 c steady as a rock and the applewood smoke filled the air nicely, after 4hrs there was a crusty golden bark and we were in aroma town.


Then the first lash up, dont fret, holding nicely, more charcoal, no calm down, but temp drops like a stone, appears have burnt out all the live charcoal. Meat to oven, failed restart with chimney. For the record Big K briquettes burn lovely but are as difficult as water to get started.

So piggy hand spent the last 5 hours in the oven.

Bark,
Bloody splendid a crust of flavourfull loveliness.
Smoke,
God applewood in full effect, num, num, num.
Pull
Epic fail, despite 9 hours the outside pulled with fierce fork based jabbage but internally it clung to the bone. Too hot or not long enough people?
Eatage
Steve I salute you, carolina red sauce recipe hit the spot and with knife based shreddage and a homemade slaw we were in flavour country. layers of pork, smoke, rub, sauce tastineess. an absolute revelation

So on balance porky tasty loveleniss but my skills needmore work.


For those of you that love the comedy of blind barbecue, made a kidney of the chimney to smoke box transfer and 3 briquettes hit the ground, there then followed the blind man in sandalls and with kevlar gloves finding the lit coals, 2 secured, but no idea where the 3rd went but my house didnt burn down, and I have no burn injuries save for the left half of my swede which needed factor 30 which I did not apply......

So cheers to all another fab day at bbq central......


Tiny

[The Social Smokers]

Don't cook by time, cook by internal temperatures. Each piece of meat is different. Use time as a guide. If you cook by internal meat temps then your pork should pull every time.

[keith157]

Don't sweat it not getting the hand to pull. For meat to pull properly there needs to be a breakdown of connective tissue NOT the cook . The hand is as lean as can be, it's almost pure meat so great for sausages & porky pies but, as you've found, doesn't have the right tissue balance for pulling. nor does the leg.
If the flavour was good then it's not a waste of your time it's another notch up the ladder of experience ( sorry about that been outside in that glarey thing in the sky too long )

[London Irish]

For those of you that love the comedy of blind barbecue, made a kidney of the chimney to smoke box transfer and 3 briquettes hit the ground, there then followed the blind man in sandalls and with kevlar gloves finding the lit coals, 2 secured, but no idea where the 3rd went but my house didnt burn down, and I have no burn injuries save for the left half of my swede which needed factor 30 which I did not apply......

So cheers to all another fab day at bbq central......


Tiny

Tiny, you're a legend!!!