WILD BILL'S BBQ SAUCE

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups ketchup
1 tablespoon dry mustard
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon Liquid Smoke (Colgin) brand
1 teaspoon freshly ground black peppercorns (Tellicherry)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
1/4 cup Molasses
1/2 cup Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey or 1/2 cup Jim Beam Bourbon or Early Times Whiskey (optional)

Mix above BBQ sauce ingredients in a sauce pot and bring to a boil making sure sugar dissolves and simmer for 30 minutes.  Let cool and store in a glass covered container in  refrigerator.  This BBQ sauce is referred to as the Piedmont, Western North Carolina or Lexington, NC style sauce with the main ingredients ketchup and vinegar.

Close-up of pulled pork BBQ sandwich with Classic Deli Slaw.

Above pulled pork BBQ prepared on 09-02-14 and used the ugly drum smoker to smoke and cook the Boston butts.  View my Ugly Drum Smoker page for sequence pixs.  The charcoal smoked flavor embedded in the pork is hard to beat!   The two Boston Butts weighted 20 pounds total and stayed in the Ugly Drum Smoker for 8 hours and ran the temperature at around 275 degrees F. and the pork internal temperature was around 191 degrees for "pulled pork."  Updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 09-02-14.  This is another one of those "off the chain good" recipes.....my bride enjoyed her plate of BBQ with Marinated Slaw and French Fries.

BBQ PLATE

Close-up pix.  Can you say "beautimous" out loud?

Pulled pork BBQ served with Rainbow Slaw, French fries, Hush Puppies, lemon and tomato.  I did a couple Boston butts on 01-31-18 and vacuum sealed ten one pound packages for later usage.  I shared some of the pulled pork BBQ with our Pastor Sam Abee and his family.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 01-24-19.

PULLED PORK UGLY DRUM PROCEDURES

Remove the lid and meat rack from the ugly drum smoker.  Remove the wire fire basket from the ugly drum smoker which has a pizza pan attached to the bottom of the fire basket to catch the spent charcoal.  Place 10 to 12 pounds of Kingsford Original charcoal in the ugly drum fire wire basket and place the wire charcoal basket back into the ugly drum smoker maker sure it is centered.  Fill a Weber charcoal chimney about level full with charcoal and place the chimney over a propane gas burner to ignite the charcoal.  Once chimney charcoal is ignited, turn off the gas burner and let all the charcoal in the Weber chimney get to burning a glowing orange color.  It will take about 20 to 30 minutes for all the charcoal in the Weber chimney to glowing a orange color.  Place the ignited charcoal over the top of the charcoal in the ugly drum smoker fire wire basket and evenly spread out the ignited charcoal.  Place about half a dozen or more whole hickory nuts including the shells on top of the ignited charcoal.  Make sure all the four lower air intake vent holes are open at least 1/3. 

Place wire meat rack back into the ugly drum smoker.  Place 2 to 4 Boston butts onto the grill meat rack surface and insert a couple digital thermometers into the Boston butts.  Place a long stem thermometer into the side of the drum below the meat rack.  Place lid back onto the ugly drum smoker barrel making sure the 2 inch diameter plug is removed from the lid to allow air flow through the ugly drum smoker.  Maintain 275 to 300 degree F. for the ugly drum temperature by opening or closing the air intake vent holes which are controlled by a 1 inch diameter magnet over each 3/4 inch diameter air intake/vent hole. 

Once the internal temperature of the Boston butts are at least 190 degrees F., remove from the ugly drum smoker and allow to cool enough to be able to handle; pull the bone from the meat and shred using a couple forks or special tools of your choice for such.  Remove any sinew, gristle, fat and skin from the pulled pork.  I add 1 to 2 cups of my bbq sauce to the shredded pork and salt and pepper to taste as well.  Many, do not add sauce to the pulled pork, but I do and most call it a finishing sauce.  Most BBQers will have a couple types of bbq sauce available; e.g., Eastern or Piedmont style sauce.

If you can't easily pull the bone from the Boston butt and it is clean, your pork is not done enough!

Serve while hot with your favorite sides.

PROCEDURE PIXS

BOSTON BUTTS DONE - CHECK THE EXPOSED BONES

PULLED PORK BBG

SERVING THE BBQ

SIDES ANYONE

Home made baked beans and hush puppies goes very well with pulled pork bbq along with home made slaw.

Classic Deli Slaw served too.

See alternate BBQ sauce recipes at Pulled Pork Sandwich page for Eastern and Piedmont/Western NC style BBQ sauce recipes.

Pix of my chopped pork BBQ platter with marinated slaw, hush puppies and deck container grown tomatoes.  I am "tight as a Georgia tick on the back of a coonhound in the month of July" after working my way slowly and deliberately through this BBQ platter savoring each delicious bite with the spicy kick from the BBQ and the marinated slaw whereby awaking any would be dormant taste bud saying, YeeHigh!  Give this BBQ recipe a try! 

Bill aka Mickey Porter 10-05-08  

OVEN BBQ

Once you use hickory wood or charcoal to prepare BBQ, there is no going back to oven BBQ or BBQ cooked using a gas cooker!  You do not get the smoked flavor, smoke ring and char.  If you can't tell a difference, your taste buds are seriously diminished and no longer work properly.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Sequence pixs below with narrative type comments:

Spread prepared yellow mustard over entire Boston Butt.  Apply a good coating of Wild Bill's Meat Rub to Boston Butt and place on a broiler pan uncovered fattest side up. Add several cups of water to the broiler pan and place in an oven or smoker at 225 degrees for 6 to 8 hours or until internal temperature is at 190 degrees F. and meat easily pulls from the bone.  If you want to turn the meat every few hours that is ok too.  A few pixs along the way:

Boston Butt ready for the dry rub.

Boston Butt with the dry rub applied.

Boston Butt was first placed in my outside smoker and stayed at least eight (8) hours and brought inside and placed in oven set at 225 degrees F. for 2 hours until the internal temperature was 167 degrees F.  190 degrees is the optimum internal temperature which the meat can be pulled from the bone. 

Note:  My outside "PORTERSTEIN" smoker heating elements would only get the cabinet temperature up to 200 degrees before placing the Boston Butt inside and then dropped about 20 degrees....heating elements are too small but work great for the lower temperature sausage making since I don't want the temperature above 165 degrees F.  However, you can get a good hickory smoke flavor using smoldering hickory sawdust.  Go to  http://www.portercalls.com/ShortStories/sausage_making.htm for a pix of my smoker in operation. 

The little inexpensive digital thermometer works great!

For pulled pork, this is what you are after around 190 degrees F.  Pix below:

Above Boston Butt did for Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Boston Butt pulled from the bone and ready to chop....my buddies use their power meat grinders with a course plate but not necessary for a single Boston Butt.  A pair of meat cleavers works very well too in the hands of someone who knows how to use them.  For pulled pork BBQ, you need the internal temperature of the pork to read around 190 degrees F.

Chopped Boston Butt ready for a "metamorphic" change into some wonderful pork BBQ Anson County (Eastern) North Carolina Style.  I can almost smell and taste the BBQ sauce from the picture.  My taste buds did a little dance as if biting into a fresh cut lemon slice.  Add as much of the BBQ sauce as you desire but with this sauce, the more you add the hotter it gets.  This sauce is medium to hot and a good balance between the hot pepper, sugar and vinegar flavors and they compliment one another very well.  There are millions of BBQ sauce recipes around and this one will get you in the ball park.  I call this sauce a more or less table sauce since it has the tomato catsup and brown sugar in there and if you apply it to the meat while cooking it will turn very dark on you.  I don't think soaking the Boston Butt down with BBQ sauce while cooking is necessary since most of it will leak off with the melted fat from the Boston Butt while it is cooking.   Eastern North Carolina BBQ Sauce recipes omit the catsup and and stick with a vinegar based BBQ sauce with black pepper, cayenne pepper and maybe chili powder while most of the Western NC style Lexington region have a tomato based BBQ style of sauce and use pork shoulders instead of a split hog.  There is no set rule, whatever you like, fix it!  I lean toward the Western NC style of BBQ using pork shoulders which can be done on a small outside grill, smoker or inside oven without having to use a large pig cooker outside for a spit hog  and a tomato/vinegar base BBQ sauce but like both styles of BBQ.  Visit http://hkentcraig.com/BBQ.html for info on Eastern NC BBQ.  BBQ done right especially the whole split hog slow cooked over charcoal or hickory embers what we call pulled BBQ which is succulent and juicy with a hint of hickory smoke flavor served right off the cooker whereby melting in your mouth doesn't really need a sauce but to me it is like icing on the cake.  My city slicker version or quick fix BBQ can't compete with a slow hickory ember fired/cooked BBQ but will get you by until you can do better and the sauce does take it to a higher level.  It will beat out any store bought BBQ around these parts for sure.

Many here in the County wrap the pork shoulder in heavy gauge aluminum foil leaving a small vent hole in the top reducing the cooking/smoking time while retaining a lot of moisture and is more or less "steam cooking" the pork shoulder on an outside grill or inside oven and it is some excellent non-traditional BBQ.   This type of BBQ has the grill/smoker temperature running around 270 degrees and some run it close to 350 degrees F. for three hours and remove the aluminum foil and place on rack and reduce temperature back down to around 270 degrees and let the pork shoulder dehydrate (melting some of the fat content) making sure the internal temperature is about 190 degrees F.  That is another cooking technique in it's self and will do one down the road for the web if there is enough interest.  See my Pulled Pork Sandwich page for this technique!

PS  I am familiar with our local Eastern style of BBQing of which my brother Allen Lee Porter has been doing for decades and I consider him a "Grill Master."  He is a welder by trade and has made all sorts of pig cookers from the old traditional oblong type fuel oil tanks with dual heating chambers for using hickory embers, charcoal and propane gas.  There are quite a few old timers around here that still burn down hickory wood to produce live embers but many have switched over to charcoal or propane and use a separate smoking chamber for a cold hickory smoke.  I can taste a difference between propane cooked BBQ versus hickory embers fired cookers.  Pix of Allen at his cooker on 06-28-14:

Pix of my brother Allen and Rachel Myers taken in Oct. 1968:

One of my brother in laws, Boyce Adcock is a  Grill Master too when it comes to BBQing Pork and/or chicken.  He uses mostly charcoal and turns out a first quality product.  Inserted a few pixs of Boyce BBQing at the Policeman's River Lodge on 12-23-06 for an annual Adcock family Christmas Party:

The ole hand meat grinder goes a lot faster than the meat cleaver when you have half a dozen more of Boston Butts to chop!

This BBQing was done outside and they have run out of daylight!  We had a great feast and party.

Web published updated pixs on 09-02-14 by Bill aka Mickey Porter.

PULLED PORK BBQ 07-25-17

The Ladies of the Wadesboro Church of God asked me to do some pulled pork bbq for a luncheon luau they were catering to the Wadesboro High School Alumni on 07-26-17, of which I agreed.

I had three Boston butts that weighed approx. 28 lbs. if memory is correct and coated them a couple days in advance with yellow mustard and a very heavy coating of my Wild Bill's Meat Rub.  They were lightly tented with aluminum foil in my basement game refrigerator until the morning of 07-25-17.

I got the ugly drum smoker going around 0700 hours and placed the three Boston butts with the fat cap side down (facing the heat source) on the rack and let the ugly drum smoker do its thing.  I had at least 12 pounds of Kingsford Original Charcoal in the fire basket and topped it off with ignited charcoal embers which filled up a standard Weber charcoal chimney.

I kept the temperature around 275 degrees and later let it get down to a little over 250 degrees F. and the Boston butts stayed in the ugly drum smoker until around 4:30 PM.  The internal temperature of one was 198 degrees F. and I believe the other one was a little over 190 degrees F.  and didn't have a digital thermometer probe in the other one, but the shoulder blade bone was sticking a good ways out indicative that the meat was done.

Those are some "beautimous" looking Boston butts.

I had to grin at myself when I was handling one of the Boston butts in our kitchen getting ready to do some shredding of the pork with a couple forks.  I got hold of the bone and lifted the Boston butt from the aluminum roster pan and the meat fell from the bone just by its own weight.

Yes, I did a little sampling of the dark outer crust aka bark on those Boston butts....grin if you must!

That pulled pork has a very deep pronounced pink smoke ring in the meat!  You don't get that pink smoke ring using gas only and/or in the oven.

There is 17.5 lbs. of pulled pork bbq in the plastic lug and added some finishing sauce to it, of which the bbq was outstanding!

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 07-28-17 and 01-25-19.

PULLED PORK BBQ 07-07-2023

J. W. Barbour, one of our Wadesboro Church of God members here in Wadesboro, NC was asked about doing some BBQ in crock pot(s) for about 40 to 50 people and I volunteered to do the Boston butts for him in my UDS.

I had JW to bring the four (4) large Boston butts over on 07-06-2023 and coated each with some yellow mustard and applied a generous coating of Wild Bill's Meat Rub on each of them.  I placed them in my basement game refrigerator and took them out around 11:30 PM and placed them in the UDS aka Ugly Drum Smoker and had the temperature running around 300 degrees and it tapered off to around 275.

The Boston butts were kept in the UDS for around 11 hours and the internal temperature was 190 degrees F.  JW was going to help pull the pork, but he was cutting his yard grass and didn't get my call until I started pulling the last Boston Butt.

The UDS is coughing charcoal smoke pretty good.  I have two digital probes in two of the butts and a gauge monitoring the UDS internal temperature.

The Boston butts are about ready to remove from the UDS.

JW weighted the pulled pork and it was 25 pounds.  I told JW, normally one pound of pulled pork will feed four people if they are not big eaters, since you have other things with the pulled pork such as baked beans, slaw, fries, hush puppies, etc.

Above pixs taken with my Obamaphone (Galaxy A13) which is not that great a quality, but passable.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 07-15-2023.

PULLED PORK BBQ 07-21-2023

I had four (4) Boston butts frozen and thawed them out on 07-19-2023 and coated them with prepared yellow mustard and a good dusting of Wild Bill's Meat Rub on each of them.  I left them in the basement game refrigerator until about 8:45 PM on the 20th and placed them in the UDS aka Ugly Drum Smoker which had the charcoal ignited and left them until around 8:15 the following morning on the 21st.  The Boston butts weighted approximately 35 pounds +- and the finished product was 20.75 pounds of pulled pork BBQ.

The ugly drum smoker with the Boston butts ready to take off and start "pulling pork."  The internal temperature was a little over 200 degrees.

This is a pix of the first one taken off the UDS and it was easy to pull aka shred using two regular table forks.

I left a good amount of "bark" with the pulled pork.  As evidenced by the pix, there is a good smoke ring on the outside surface of the pulled pork.  You can't get this smoke ring using a gas cooker!

The above 20.75 pounds of pulled pork with my BBQ Sauce added commonly called a finishing sauce.

The pulled pork BBQ was placed in the game refrigerator in our basement and later vacuum sealed in about one (1) pound packages to be frozen for later usage.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 07-22-2023.

LEAVING ON A SPIRITUAL NOTE