New 'Que For You

Last weekend, Hiroshi and I headed out to East Hampton to get in some much needed bbq meditation. We cooked 4 racks of ribs, a beer can chicken, a pork shoulder, texas-style beans, cole slaw and hot dogs. The hot dogs kept us fueled while we were waiting. We used a combination of oak, hickory, wild cherry, apple and peach. The oak was mainly for fuel and the others were added as accents with an emphasis placed on the apple and peach. Pictures from the weekend are below this text.

The weather was perfect-- upper 70's, clear and just a slight breeze. We used an all wood fire, starting with twigs and throwing a few sticks on at a time. It seemed like we were adding more wood every 30 to 45 minutes, but as long as we pre-heated the sticks, we cruised at about 231 degrees by adding one or two at a time. The best part was that there was practically no ash to worry about.

Two racks were just dry rubbed, the other two had a slather and rub. On day one, we just cooked up ribs and used a modified Cattlemen's sauce as a glaze because I had a craving to cook some sticky, gooey ribs. They were good, but I actually preferred the dry ribs from the next day, which was Sunday.

We got up Sunday morning, started up the fire, and when we got to about 275 on the Polder, we threw on the pork shoulder which was painted with some mustard and rub, as well as the beer-butt chicken. The can was about 1/3 beer, an onion, and a few cloves of garlic. About 5 hours later, we pulled the chicken and threw on the next two racks of ribs. We pulled the ribs and the shoulder about 5 hours later. The 7 pound shoulder took about 10 hours at 230 and the only time the hood was up was putting on and taking off the meats, no mopping or anything else. The bone pulled clean out and the meat shredded with little effort. The best, sweetest shoulder we ever made. The ribs from Sunday were mild, smokey, sweet. Just about everything I was looking for. Both days, we ate the trimmings from the racks w/ some sides as dinner.

We got home Monday evening in time to watch the fireworks and crash.

Clucker on a throne (Don't know what the red dot is from)

Pork about to be pulled

Sandwich time!

Sunday's ribs and trimmings

Boy in alley with sparkler

Fireworks over the Hudson River