Having a total of 14 guests in the evening, why not preparing a great BBQ? A smoker can take a lot of meat, so for this I decided to smoke two kinds of Baby Back Ribs plus one pork shoulder for pulled pork. Everyone is helping with preparing desert plus the salad dishes:
Salad bar
My job was to get up early to deal with the fire and meat 🙂
Pork Ribs and Shoulder
From my local butcher I ordered 2.2 kg pork baby back ribs. They all have the membrane removed from the back bones:
Baby Back Ribs
This time I used the same dry rub for the pork should and the ribs.
- 2 tablespoons coarse salt (kosher or sea)
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
- 1 tablespoon Rudy’s Dry Rub
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
(scale as needed, above is for about 4 racks)
The day before ribs they get a mustard treatment:
Ribs and Mustard
Then add the rub and massage it in:
Ribs and Rub
Rub Detail
Cover it with foil and let it rest overnight in the refrigerator:
Foiled Ribs
For the pork (2.2 kg) shoulder I use vegetable oil (sunflower oil) to make the dry rub stick better: massage the oil into the meat, then apply the rub.
Vegetable Oil for Pork Shoulder
Rub and Pork Shoulder
Cover it with foil and let it rest overnight in the refrigerator.
Smoking
I estimated 12 hours smoking plus resting for the shoulder, and around 6-7 for the ribs. Fired up the smoker at 04:45am, after taking the meat out of the refrigerator. Put the shoulder into the smoker at 6am, followed by the ribs at 10 am.
Fire in the morning
The shoulder does not get any treating during the cooking process. Except that I turn it around after 6 hours to distribute the heat better during the cooking.
The ribs get two kind of mop sauce, one we use traditionally for one half of the ribs:
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons onion power
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoon paprika powder
- 1 tablespoon Rudy’s BBQ dry rub
- 1 cup of apple juice
- 1 cup of apple+honey vinegar
- mix everything in a bowl
I tried a new one based on butter and soy sauce for the other half of the ribs:
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup apple juice
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- Melt the butter slowly in a pan, and then add apple juice and soy sauce. Apply warm to the meat
The ribs get a mop treatment every hour.
Here is how it looks after 9 hours smoking:
After 9 hours
After 13 hours the pork should reached 94°C, and the ribs were looking good too:
Ribs and Pork
Pork shoulder
Wrapped them into heavy aluminum foil to get them a resting time of one hour.
Wrapped and in Cooler
Results
Below a selection of salads. I bet you won’t find out what kind of salad the red one is?
Salad bar
Unwrapping the pork shoulder:
Unwrapped Pork Shoulder
Pulling the pork:
Pulling Pork
Pulled pork detail:
Pulled Pork Detail
Pulled pork in pre-heated glass bowl:
Pulled Pork
Unwrapping the ribs:
Unwrapped Ribs
Cutting the ribs:
Cutting Ribs
Summary
The pulled pork was juicy and excellent, with a nice bark. Both kinds of ribs were great too. The ones with soy sauce tasted salty, but not too much. I think I can repeat that thing the next time :-). Oh wait, I need to try beef shoulder next time too :-).
MCU on Eclipse 
> I bet you won’t find out what kind of salad the red one is?
Pink grapefruit and mango?
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Kind of close, but not really 🙂 Anyone else?
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it was a melon salat wadn’t it😜
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Correct, congratulations! Melon salad with onions!
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Melon and onions! Sounds like an unusual combo. Maybe I’ll try it.
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