Is My Barbecue Ready Yet? – Cooking Pork

To many in Southeast US, the very meaning of barbecue, is pork. Pork is obviously a very generic term, and really could mean anything cooked from a hog. However for most of us, in barbecue, cooking pork means the shoulder, and for most, the desired cut from the shoulder is the Boston Butt, and this is what we will cover in this article.

The selection process I use for this piece of meat, includes finding one has the fat well marbled or dispersed throughout the cut.

Then, I start looking at weight, the higher the weight, the longer the cook, so I like them right in the middle (8-9lbs). You can find very small ones, which in my opinion are normally difficult to get tender (4-6lb), and the very large ones (11-13lb) are difficult to cook evenly.

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Is My Barbecue Ready Yet? – Cooking Beef Brisket

By Kevin Bevington
Now that we have our rub, the right equipment, and we are able to control a consistent temperature, we are ready to attempt the toughest meat to cook, Beef Brisket. Lets first discuss how to select the meat you are about to cook. Beef Brisket can typically be sold in 3 different size cuts.

First, is the whole packer cut, this whole cut includes the 2 very distinctly different muscles that make up the entire cut, you have the flat which would be considered the flat long piece of meat, the point, which includes the nose end, and the meat layer underneath the flat, which is separated by a layer of fat which is also known as a deckle layer. The whole packer cut is the most desirable cut to cook in your smoker, the main reason being, the tremendous amount of fat that can be left on this cut to give it plenty of moisture to draw from while cooking.

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Is My Barbecue Ready Yet? – Cooking Ribs

By Kevin Bevington

There are different ways to cook, and determine doneness in your BBQ ribs, and we are going to break those down into the 2 types.

St Louis Spare Ribs – St Louis Spare Ribs can be one of the most difficult meats to cook and to get done accurately. Many of the ways you would determine doneness, take some time and experience to identify and master. But first, we will cover a good process to use, which will take you real close to being done, and then you can apply a couple of simple techniques to determine doneness.

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Is My Barbecue Ready Yet? – Part 2