Vol. XXX · The Cuisines of the World Plate 10 of 11barbecue, BBQ, smoking, low and slow, brisket, pork shoulder, pulled pork, ribs, smoke ring, bark, rub, the stall, wrapping, Texas crutch, wood smoke, collagen, 93 °C, asado, braaiHT

Smoke and Barbecue.

A pork shoulder smoked at 110 °C takes most of a day. The smoke ring that marks it formed in the first couple of hours, while its surface was still below 60 °C.

Barbecue (pit barbecue in the American South, and its cousins — Argentine asado, South African braai, Jamaican jerk) is cooking with wood heat and smoke. American "low and slow" barbecue holds a smoker at about 105–135 °C and cooks large tough cuts for 8–16 hours: the long time near the boiling point converts their abundant collagen to gelatin (VI.6), so brisket slices tender and pork shoulder pulls apart at an internal temperature of about 90–96 °C — far past "done" (XVIII.9). Partway through, the meat's temperature stalls for hours as evaporation from its surface cools it (III.5); wrapping it in paper or foil (the "Texas crutch") stops the evaporation and pushes through the stall, at the cost of a softer bark.

The smoke ring is a pink band just under the surface, made when nitrogen oxides from burning wood dissolve in the moist surface and bind to myoglobin, fixing its red colour (the colour of cured meat, XIII.5). It forms only while the surface is moist and below about 60 °C, before the myoglobin is denatured; so it grows in the first hours and then stops, and a cold, wet surface going into a clean-burning smoker gives the deepest ring. The bark is the dark crust of rub, rendered fat and Maillard products (VIII.1) that forms as the surface dries. Smoke itself should be thin and blue, from a clean, hot fire; thick white smoke tastes bitter and deposits soot. The workshop smokes a pork shoulder.

Below: a 100 mm pork shoulder in a smoker at the temperature you choose (thermal bench with surface evaporation, which produces the stall), with or without wrapping: hours until the centre reaches 93 °C, the minutes the surface stays below 60 °C, and a teaching estimate of the smoke ring.

What you will learn
Workshop
Thermal bench: a 100 mm slab of pork-shoulder composition (USDA) from 5 °C in moving smoky air at the chosen temperature, with surface evaporation (course model of the stall, III.5); wrapped = evaporation stopped. Smoke ring (teaching): about 5 mm × √(minutes below 60 °C ÷ 120), after the observation that the ring stops forming once the surface passes about 60 °C.

Low, slow, clean smoke

In the thermal model the shoulder at 110 °C reaches 93 °C at the centre after about 11.7 hours, with its surface below 60 °C — the smoke-ring window — for about 125 minutes; at 150 °C it is done in 6.6 hours, but the window shrinks to about 33 minutes. Wrapped at 110 °C, it finishes in about 8.6 hours. Pitmasters choose: lower and longer for a deep ring and a thick bark, hotter or wrapped to finish in time.

Pulled pork: trim a 3–4 kg bone-in pork shoulder, rub with 2 tbsp each salt, brown sugar and paprika, 1 tbsp each black pepper and garlic powder, and refrigerate overnight. Put it cold into a smoker stabilised at 110–120 °C with a small, clean-burning fire of hardwood (hickory, oak or fruit wood), fat side up. Smoke until the bark is dark and set (5–6 hours); wrap in butcher paper if it stalls long; continue to 93–96 °C internal, when a probe slides in like butter. Rest wrapped in a cool box 1 hour, then pull into shreds, mixing in the juices. Keep the meat above 60 °C while serving, and cool leftovers quickly (XII.7).

At the stove

Smoke or slow-roast two small pork shoulders, one wrapped at the stall and one unwrapped. Compare the time and the bark.

The word barbecue comes through Spanish barbacoa from the Taíno of the Caribbean, whose wooden frames for cooking and smoking meat over a fire the Spanish described in the early sixteenth century.

Terms

Low and slow
Smoking tough cuts at 105–135 °C for many hours.
Smoke ring
Pink band from smoke gases binding myoglobin under 60 °C.
Bark
Dark crust of rub, fat and Maillard products.
Texas crutch
Wrapping to stop evaporation and push through the stall.
Barbecue cooks tough, fatty cuts at 105–135 °C for 8–16 hours to about 93 °C, melting collagen. The stall is evaporative cooling; wrapping ends it. The smoke ring forms only while the surface is below about 60 °C; bark as it dries. Keep the smoke thin and blue.

Sources

  1. USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy (April 2018), public domain.
  2. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.
  3. H. McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, 2nd ed., Scribner, 2004.