Bubba Tom's Eastern North Carolina Style Barb Recipe

Recipe Ingredients

1 5-8 lb boston butt pork roast, smok, ed
1 masonjar apple cider vinegar
4 tbsp cayenne pepper flakes
8 bulbs garlic

PAN SAUCE

12 oz apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp cayenne pepper flakes
1 tbsp salt
2 cup water

While nothing can duplicate the sweet ambrosia of slow, pit-cooked,
whole hog Eastern North Carolina barbeque, this is a right close
backyard approximation for those of us who find themselves exiled in
distant, heathen regions of barbeque heresy.

First, get yourself some pork shoulders or Boston Butt roasts, as
many as your smoker will hold comfortably. I use a Brinkmann
Professional Pit Smoker with an offset firebox, but you can do this
with a vertical Brinkmann water smoker as well. The key is providing
a moist, smoky, indirect heat for a long period of time.

What I do is put a bag of charcoal in the firebox, open the vents,
light it, and let it burn down to coals. Then I add wood (generally
oak, since hickory is scarce up here)--two parts wet (soaked) wood to
one part dry--regulate the dampers, and put the shoulders or butts,
fat side up, in the cooking chamber. Beneath the meat I put a drip
pan half-filled with apple cider vinegar. You must keep the heat
between 180-260 degrees throughout the smoking process; the optimum
range is 220-240 degrees. Normally, I'll add apple wood to the
firebox as well, and I always add between 5-7 whole heads of garlic
during the process. Keep the firebox fed and a good smoke going for
between 8 to 10 hours. Do not open the cooking chamber to baste the
meat--the only time you open the cooking chamber is when the
temperature spikes above 260 degrees, and you open it only long
enough to bring the temperature back in the proper range. By the time
the smoking period is finished, the outside of the pork will have a
golden amber to dark brown crust.

Now, take the meat and put it in a covered Dutch oven. If it's too
dark outside to continue, preheat your indoor stoves' oven to just
under 300 degrees; otherwise, just raise the temperature in the
cooking chamber a like amount. Get a quart-sized Mason jar; fill it
halfway with apple cider vinegar, add one (or more) teaspoons of red
pepper flakes, and fill the rest of the jar with water. Dump this
into the Dutch oven with the pork, cover, and cook until the meat
falls from the bone, about 2 more hours or so.

When the meat is done, let it cool a bit. [NOTE: If you're too tired,
you can stop here for the day--cover 'em up, put them in the fridge,
and warm 'em up the next morning and continue

the procedure]. While it's cooling, fill some 16 ounce bottles with
apple cider vinegar, adding about a teaspoon of red pepper flakes to
each one (I use Grolsch beer bottles with those pull-down caps, any
excuse for buying good beer...). When the pork has cooled enough to
handle (I use latex gloves) pull it into thumb-sized chunks,
discarding as much fat as possible. Pack roughly 3 pounds of barbeque
into a large frying pan (I use a Number 10 size cast iron skillet).
Dissolve 1 tablespoon of salt into 2 1/2 cups of warm water and pour
it into the pan. Add about 12 ounces of your apple cider vinegar and
red pepper sauce, turn the heat to medium, and let the liquid slowly
simmer off, stirring frequently, until the sauce just barely oozes
over the top of your spatula when you press down on the barbeque with
it. Remove from heat, and congratulate yourself--you've just made a
fine batch of Eastern North Carolina Style Barbeque.

Recipe By : Tom Solomon

Servings: 1

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