For the past 6 years, during the month of September, my friends from CEGEP and I have been meeting in a chalet in Saint-Raymond to maintain our beautiful and great friendship. Each year, the Montagnard welcomes us with its finest attributes: a place by the fire, cozy beds, a large table to place our " red cups » and an immensely large lake to wade in on hot summer days. Calm enough to relax in, deep enough not to disturb the neighborhood. A weekend without cell service where people take an interest in each other.
It’s a chance for us to sit down together and share a good meal. This year, I had made it my mission to cook for the whole group. My mandate: to feed 11 hungry people for a weekend.
I wanted to share with my group of friends my love for the grill. I wanted to cook my entire menu on the BBQ like we do every day at work. I wanted to share my passion, my work, my lifestyle with those I love.
I also wanted to cook something that I had never done by myself on a BBQ before. To hell with hot dogs, let's impress the gallery!
A week before leaving for the chalet, I decided to make pulled pork burgers. To hell with vegetarianism for this weekend! I want to please the carnivores in the place; I want to put on a show! So I would cook a pork shoulder.
All-in I'm going for it !
Step One: Get a pork shoulder and cook the beast the day before we leave for the chalet. I may have assisted Max and JP hundreds of times in cooking demonstrations, but I assure you that when Oli Brière, butcher and owner of Boucherie Auclair in Sainte-Julie, placed the colossal piece of meat in my arms, I felt very small.
Left to my own devices, I followed the good advice of my work colleagues for the next steps. I looked at the time, 10:14, it was time to prepare the beast and place it in my Campchef with pellets for the hours to come.
Prepare the injection
In a large bowl, I first infused the Kansas spices in very hot water. I suggest you stir the mixture for 1 to 2 minutes. Once the mixture had cooled, I added 7up and pineapple juice . To hell with quantities, if you too are left to your own devices to cook a pork shoulder, trust yourself! Once the mixture was ready, I then prepared my injection syringe.
To do this, I followed the technique of our BBQ Master JP Lavoie: "inject your meat with the mixture, pricking well in the center of the meat. We inject at each square inch of the meat, so that the entire meat is saturated in flavor and juice." Basically, visualize a grid on your pork shoulder and prick at each square inch.
Done .
Prepare the dry marinade
Like a Salt Bae of myself, I then sprinkled my piece of meat with 3 rub different to obtain maximum flavor. It must be said that it is about rub that I particularly like. To try at home!
- 1/3 Butcher BBQ Honey Rub
- 1/3 of the Kansas dry marinade BBQ Quebec
- 1/3 Blues Hog Rub (dry marinade)
Cover your entire piece of meat with the spice mixture. Then, place it in your smoker at 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cooking the beast
Next, the meat needs to reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Once it reaches this temperature, wrap the piece of meat in aluminum foil, then return the pork shoulder to the grill. At the same time, I increased the temperature of the BBQ to 350 degrees F to speed up the cooking a little.
The final step: reach 203 degrees Fahrenheit so that you can then shred the meat.
I recommend getting a dual-probe Bluetooth thermometer if you're a BBQ nerd and open the lid every 7 minutes. " If you 're looking , you're not cooking !! ». This device allowed me to track the internal temperature of my meat from the comfort of my office.
Okay. So far I haven't talked about cooking times because, being a beginner, I encountered a few difficulties along the way but nothing too serious. My meat reached a plateau at 144 degrees Fahrenheit for 1h30. I had to increase the temperature of my BBQ so as not to spend the night at the store and I slipped my piece of meat into the aluminum foil a little earlier.
All in all, I cooked my piece of meat for about 8 hours. It was longer than I initially thought it would take, but the result was worth it. Trust me.
Wolverine.
After several hours and after all the good and precious advice from my colleagues, my pork shoulder finally reached 203 degrees Fahrenheit internal temperature. I open the BBQ and take out the beast. With me, two salespeople from BBQ Québec.
Their eyes and their exclamations reassured me at once. The piece of meat seemed per-fectly successful. I then began to shred the meat with the BBQ Québec shredder. It was like playing in butter. We were three young kids in front of a work by Michelangelo. The taste was there, the fat had melted well and the smoke ring was amazing.
The secret ingredient: pineapple juice. I swear we tasted the pineapple that was in the starting injection! It was DIVINE!
For the finale, I added two sauces to the pulled pork:
- Blues Hog Tennessee red
- Blues Hog Champion's Blend
D-Day
It goes without saying that the Montagnard is not a princess's dream. The Montagnard hides a poor quality BBQ on its patio with rusty grills. Nevertheless, I did what was necessary to properly reheat my pulled pork for Friday dinner and I added a little sweet lemon sauce to top it off.
So much praise for the beast! It was delicious!!! We ate pork the next two days, from lunch to dinner. I was really, really proud of myself! I wouldn't have been embarrassed to present this dish to my two bosses!
I understand today that the world of BBQ is a story that involves trial and error. Trust yourself and dare to cook something other than hot dogs. Life is too short to be satisfied with simple dry chicken skewers. Word of a carnivore!
Special thanks to Jean-François.
See you next year Montagnard,
