Ah... a day of meat smoking... knocking the morning dew off the grill amid early birdsong... stepping out of the house into the sweet drift of wood smoke... putting together a big meal with friends... there is nothing like smoking a big piece of pork. Here are some suggestions to put you on the road to good ribs or pork shoulder (shoulder butt) over a gas grill.
Preparation: Either buy your meat fresh or give yourself enough time to let it thaw completely. For frozen cuts, rinse the cut and pat or let sit to dry. To trim ribs, I remove the tough membrane on the inner side of the rib cage: use a knife to get a corner of the membrane up, then starting from that edge, carefully pull up the rest of the membrane. You may need to divide a full rack so that it'll fit within just one half of your grill--that'll allow you to keep the meat on one side and the burners running on the other. To trim shoulder butt, I remove any blood clots and may cut off excess sections of loose, soft fat. Leave the dense white fat that's attached to the outside of the cut. Let your meat come to room temperature--take the ribs or shoulder out of the fridge, rub them with the below mix, then let sit for and hour or so. Ideally, get them out of their packaging, do whatever trimming is necessary, and set them out in a cold garage, shed, or the fridge to develop a nice rind or 'pellicle'. At minimum, leave them on the counter while you get your fire going.
Killer Pork Dry Rub
This is a great item to make in bulk and use over the course of a couple of months; I make about a quart at a time. These quantities are provided in rough ratios--add, substitute or adjust as necessary.
4 Paprika
3 brown sugar
1 garlic powder
1 onion powder
1 salt
.5 cumin
.5 dried chile power
.5 black pepper
.25 cayenne powder
You'll want about 1/3 cup or so of this rub for each rib rack and something over a 1/2 cup for a shoulder. Take care to keep your jar of rub clean from raw pork during this process. Shake the rub over the cut and press into the meat to cover entire surface before cooking. Let sit on meat for a hour or two if you've got time. This rub is great for ribs, country-style ribs (cut up shoulder), pork shoulder, and even loin.
Smoking: The key to BBQing is slow indirect heat. This is going to take a long time. Start early in the day and keep the temperature low. If your meat is in the heat plume above the burner, it'll cook too quickly; instead, you'll want to light the burners on one side of the grill, turn them down low, then keep the meat on the OTHER side of the grill. Place a tray or dish of water in the BBQ (sometimes under the meat, since there's no fire underneath) to keep the environment humid and the meat moist. Avoid opening the lid over your meat too often--the heat will get out and slow down the process considerably. However, you should plan on hanging out within sight/smell of the grill most of the time. You should look every thirty minutes or hour to flip or rearrange the ribs and to be aware enought of grill conditions to save the meat from a grill flare up or a case of flaming smoking wood.
A few chuncks of wood slowly smoking near the meat is crucial. Around the Front Range, apple wood is readily available and one of my favorites. The more intense smoke from hickory can also be a great choice. Keep your eye out for neighbors or friends that my be cutting down or pruning fruit or nut wood. Here's a great breakdown of the qualities of many smoking woods. Place the the wood in a location where it won't light on fire, but will get sufficient heat to produce continuous smoke. If the wood lights on fire, it will completely blacken your meat with acrid ash. I prefer chunks or split sticks of wood to the nickel-sized chips. Chunks of wood tend to take care of themselves, slowly smoking for an hour or two, while smaller chips can release quite a bit of smoke in the first twenty minutes then give out. You would like a slow, constant drift of smoke over the meat. Like the spreading howls of dogs after a distant siren, the plume of sweet smoke slipping from your grill will set off a chain reaction downwind as your neighbors fire up their own grills.
If you are done early, it is easy to reduce BBQ heat and hold for a few hours if needed. The ribs will only be better for it. If the ribs don't get enough time (and are underdone), your guests will be gnawing through a lot of un-broken down connective tissue or un-rendered fat. If you think you get a lot of complaints about how long dinner takes, try serving underdone ribs. The ribs should really be starting to come apart--you should be able to pull out a rib bone without much effort. So in summary... you will be glad you started early. If you are in a rush, consider cooking something other than barbeque. Make sure that you have enough heat to keep the ribs cooking, but remember that too-high temperatures will result in tough, dried out meat. If you are getting much browning early in the process, the meat is too close to the fire or the heat is too high.
Serving: For shoulder, you'll want to start at ten for dinnertime serving, figuring on a 10-hour cook time. Ribs will take less time--maybe 6-8 hours. With a nice shoulder butt you can feed 15 hungry folks a really great meal for 10-15 dollars. Cook shoulder to 185-190 degrees F at the bone and tear into shreds to serve on buns with sauce and pickles. An even better test is the readiness with which you can separate the strands within muscle groups--you should be able to part most of the muscle groups in the shoulder without too much strain. Ideally, break the shoulder into muscle groups and remove any muscle sheath or excess fat before pulling into strands. This will make for a much more appealing product. Don't blow the whole thing with bad barbeque sauce. Lots of recipies are available online. Stubbs Original from Austin, TX is a great sauce available everywhere. Find friends coming back from NY (Dinosaur BBQ) or KC (Gates BBQ) that want to fuel your barbeque habit and keep them happy by serving them lots of good smoked pig!!
