PPB for 50

 

 

Will pick up the case of pork shoulders on Wednesday and that afternoon trim them, rub them and wrap them for smoking. Plan is to barbecue them over oak and apple,  pull them here, then pack the meat in foil trays for delivery. It's a nice project and one we're looking forward to with tasty results. Stay tuned...

 

 

 

 

This morning picked up the 60 LB case of Picnic Shoulders I'd ordered for the reunion. Lots of good looking meat here...

 

 

The rind needs trimming off, but no worries, it isn't going to waste.  Skinned them up and here we are...

 

 

It'll become cracklin's, flavor additive for beans or greens, chili, and and plenty other things. It's all good. and rememember~ Fat Is Flavour! Got three good sized ziplocs with 2 skins apiece, then put them into the deepfreeze for later.

 

 

Last week I'd made a two-quart jar of my famous "house-rub" which I used for this. Folks have loved my rub so much, I've done given up on the mustard slather and other rub recipe I used to use....this one is ten times as good and no need for slather; it's got all the makin's in the world for a good "bark" and loads of country-taste too.  

 

 

Here we have sixty pounds of happy-picnics rubbed, wrapped, and ready for the fridge. Couldn't have done it without the two extra sets of hands from the kids to help Dad in prepping the meat!

 

 

After a bit of math......figuring out how much folks were gonna eat, how much finished meat would come out of the raw goods, I started to worry a bit. Loss percentage, times sammich-size, times hungry folks....I decided I was cutting it too close and sent the kids to the store to pick up some more. No more picnics, but they had some butts- one boneless- and had the kids snatch them up. To see the difference between a "picnic shoulder" and a "butt", click here.

 

 

Rubbed those babies, wrapped them and put them to bed with their brothers until barbecue time!

 

 

Sure could have used your help today- wow! It was a hot 95 today with a heat index of 104 and muggy too. The occasional Oklahoma breeze didn't help much but was appreciated.

 

It sure is a big difference in having a long, single-piece barbecue (like a brisket) versus several iterations of many (like today's) which then needed pulling. My son was a trooper, sticking with me the whole time and sure made the task work out smoothly. He did a bang-up job of tending the fire, maintaining temps the entire time with no need for help at all.

 

We barbecued over oak and pecan (no apple) with a straight orange juice spritz.

 

 

As the pieces got done, we took them off the grill, rested them then started pulling. As you can imagine, this ended up being a steady, all-day affair since no two pieces were the same weight nor cooked evenly. No worries, a new piece went on and we barbecued steady all day...for about 15 hrs total.

 

 

The BEAR PAWS Mrs Rivet bought me worked out GREAT, and I highly recommend them to anyone pulling big cuts of meat or quantities. They worked perfectly for tearing the chunks as well as some of the finer pulling of the meaty sections-

 

 

Got to say we sure enticed the neighbourhood with the scent of wood and barbecue all day long! Had a few good books to read under the big umbrella, icy-cold drinks from the cooler in the garage, and spent the downtimes enjoying the heat    Opening the smoker for the regular spritz and temping was sure nice...man that pork made us drool!

 

 

So now we have 8 pans of PPB in the fridge nicely cooled, foiled and tucked away for Saturday. That is going to be worth every drop of sweat! If folks don't mind, I'll make sure to take some pics of the event and the smiling faces of barbecue happiness.

 

great job a beautiful pix! i am sure that  your efforts will be rewarded!