I had my second run on the smoker today. Couple of pork shoulders went in at 8 AM, a couple racks of ribs in front of them at noon, and by 6 PM it was dinnertime. No sauce, just a rub of the wife’s devising, and nothing fancy on the wood – just white and a little red oak. And like last time, it went down a treat with the people to whom I fed it.
There’s a pattern forming: rub down the pork shoulder the night before and put it in a bag in the fridge overnight. Come up with a gallon of Arnold Palmer somewhere – either bought in a jug from Safeway or just get a bottle of tea and a bottle of lemonade from Whole Foods and mix. Plus coffee to start off with. And the fire gets lit at 7:45 and is usually good to go just in time to insert the aluminum pans with the shoulders in them at 8. Then tend the fire for a while with Absolute Radio’s Rock and Roll Football coverage, including the whole of Ian Wright’s call-in show, which takes me through to about 11. After that, just play music on the iPhone, catch up any remaining podcasts, doodle around on the computer, read the Kindle. Open and rub down the ribs at 11:45, on the rack in the smokebox at noon, and then it’s just sitting around waiting and tending the fire. Don’t let it drop below 150 or get much over 180, and I still don’t have a really good sense of the wood. The afternoon wasn’t as predictable as the first time, and the fire seemed to run hotter.
It’s also cold. I don’t know how much of that is just cool weather and overcast skies, how much is sitting still in a reclining chair at 8 AM, and how much is made worse by the Arnold Palmer blend, but my designated smoking outfit tends to be a t-shirt, then the soft-shell, then a canvas jacket over that, creating the look of a heavy work coat. Which makes sense to me; a blanket-lined Carhartt is about what I’d expect to wear running a smoker in winter. Makes for a lot to wash when I get home, though – the wife claims that the smoke effect is if anything stronger (though less unpleasant) than the days when I’d come home having smoked two cigars. I’m a little curious how it’s going to be this summer.
I’m also a little curious how the iPad is going to work out. I have Wi-Fi in the yard where the smoker is, so that’s not a problem, and the iPad should last a hell of a lot longer than the MacBook Air has done. Will I end up with iPad and iPhone running simultaneously? Probably. Might still staff out books to the Kindle just for battery purposes. But no matter what the reading material (or surfing options), it always adds up to a quiet, relaxed afternoon with plenty of five-space. Time to myself in a good cause – or at least a good cause as far as the folks at dinner are concerned.
There’s very little to it. All the work is in assembling the rub and applying it to the meat. Once the fire is lit and the meat’s in its box, the rest of it is just hanging out waiting with an eye on the thermometer and occasionally pitching a log into the firebox. No basting, no swabbing, no rotating anything – the smoke does the work and I just sit there with my feet up. Odd, that I should find a new hobby less than a week before turning 40 and take to it so readily, but I admit I have – it’s almost dead solid perfect, even if it means getting out of bed at 7:30 Saturday morning. It gives me alone time and plenty of it, followed almost immediately and of necessity by social time. I don’t even need that much of the meat myself – but there’s plenty to go around, and I cooked. I never cook. At best I might throw a steak on the grill for ten minutes. But this is dinner I made, and people like it, which is gratifying and positive reinforcement for the future. And there’s one imperial shit-ton of wood already there, enough for at least a half-dozen more runs.
Once a month, minimum. Not a bad habit to get into.