A while back Doktor Harmon and Burn Unit challenged one another to a duel. The weapons were to be fire, smoke, and pork shoulder, and at stake was the honor of Minnesota's ability to produce good barbecue.

We cooked and distributed fifteen pounds of barbecue in the classic low-and-slow style, all of it delicious. SFZerians and non-players alike attended to receive free food, for which the only price was a willingness to choose between two well-made and noticeably different offerings of barbecue.



COOKING THE PORK:
We decided to dispense with the whole "secrets" tradition to which many barbecue cooks adhere. The whole "secret sauce" thing is overplayed and we're happy to share our ideas and contrast techniques. So do enjoy the following secret recipes, we have nothing to fear that you will somehow steal our mojos.

Dok H: We have very similar approaches to this step, though not identical. As the resident mad scientist I figure it falls to me to explain the theory, while Burn Unit won and will thus be better at explaining some of the practical details.

The primary effect of cooking meat, using most techniques, is to denature the proteins so as to make it easier and more palatable to eat. Care is needed to keep the moisture from all drying out, which happens all to easily as the internal temperature goes up and the meat goes past "well done" and into the realm of "overcooked". Barbecue is an exception. The goal is to completely dry out the meat by raising its temperature to 195 or even more - at which point the collagen breaks down and becomes gelatin, which moistens the meat anew. The result is once again juicy and delicious.

The hard part is attaining this effect throughout a large piece of meat without burning the exterior. This is done by keeping the temperature inside the grill very low, just hotter than where you want the meat, and requires very long cooking times. (90 minutes per pound is not uncommon.)

One thing I do (although Burn Unit does not) is to baste the top of the meat every half hour or so (the meat gets turned over halfway through, so both sides receive the basting). It keeps the top cool, while letting heat soak in through the bottom, and lengthens the cooking time (it's part of why I was looking at 90 per pound) but helps get the meat cooked more evenly. It also adds flavor, since the basting is done with a thin barbecue sauce. This helps the sauce and the meat harmonize particularly well.

Burn Unit: Probably the main way I departed from Dok was the dry exterior. Though I did have the moderating step of using a pan. Anyway. There's an enormous leap of faith in doing this insofar as you really have to trust the meat (also trust that your fire will be kept fairly low in temperature). This is one reason to use pork shoulder. The "butt" of the pork, which is to say the top end of the shoulder joint, is marbled with a lot of fat and has many connective tissues in it. As Dok points out with his talk of collagen and gelatin above—mmm, collagen—these would suck if you quick cooked them. But they, along with the fat, are an asset in barbecue because it allows you to just toss that thing in the grill and trust that it won't dry out, even as it acquires a very dark crusty exterior. Non-enthusiasts looking at the finished product of mine below will see a pretty scary chunk of burned-looking meat. Well, the fat really helps. Slow cooking renders the fat and breaks down the connective tissue into very soft, supple texture. The crust also lends wonderful textural variety in contrast with the silky meat. To get a tastier crust, I use a dry rub.

Burn Unit's dry rub:
1 T cumin seed
1/2 t cardamom seed
1/2 t caraway seed
3/4 t coriander
5 allspice grains
pinch of ground cloves
salt and pepper (probably 2T salt, 5 grinds of pepper)

Grind seeds in a mortar and pestle or mill (as a convenient spice mill I use a blade style coffee grinder retired from its prior life). Rub all over the pork, add salt and pepper, and put into a container at room temp for about three hours—I put mine in a plastic bag. I am very particular about these spices. What I wanted to do was throw in a nod to some heritage flavors and represent the historically beloved spices of "my people" which is to say the northern Europeans who settled the area. Caraway is my chief acknowledgment here, but also the cardamom and cloves. I didn't have any nutmeg so that got left out but 1/2t of it would be acceptable in this rub.

After setup I put the butt into a foil pan, put it on the grill opposite from the pile of coals and woodchips, and slapped on the lid. The pan keeps the drippings out of fire and makes grill cleanup easier, but it actually has a secondary purpose of collecting a delicious quantity of fatty braising liquid that probably aided the cause of preventing drying out. I put it in fat side down at first, flipped after two hours, and turned two more times over the course of the day. I only checked on my meat every 55-70 minutes, adding more coals and soaked hickory chips at that time. I started checking on the meat temperature with a probe about 1/3 of the way thru and let it get up into the 190-196º F range.

I pulled it after eight hours and let it rest, covered, for about 30 minutes or so. Then I pulled it apart with two forks (hence "pulled pork") into large chunks and held it in a pan with some of the drippings.

Dok H: Oh yes, I almost forgot to include my dry rub recipe! I rub my meat with equal parts salt, sugar, cayenne pepper, and black pepper. Unlike Burn Unit, I tend to go sparingly on the rub because of the sugar - it caramelizes as it cooks and too much of that isn't tasty. I use this same rub on steaks, by the way, with good results.

In a North Carolina barbecue joint the menu will usually describe the pork as "chopped" rather than "pulled" (though nobody will look at you funny for using either term), because the technique tends to involve knives instead of forks, but the goal is the same - shred the now-very-tender meat to help the texture realize its full potential. I favor a somewhat coarser chop than is most common, so that's what I prepared, but under no circumstances should a knife be needed or even useful for eating the end result.

SAUCE:

We have different approaches to this - but anyone who seriously cares about their barbecue knows that proper barbecue sauce has nothing at all to do with the substance found in a KC Masterpiece bottle. And they also know it's the meat that matters - but the sauce is that final touch that makes a perfectly-cooked piece of barbecue into the work of art it is.

Dok H's western North Carolina style vinegar sauce:

In a medium saucepan, stir together:

3 c apple cider vinegar
24 oz Hunt's ketchup
1 1/2 c packed light brown sugar
1/4 c salt
1/4 c worcestershire
2 tb crushed red pepper
1 tb black pepper, fresh ground

Simmer until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Pour into a half-empty one-gallon jug of cider vinegar, and add enough vinegar back in to bring it up to a full gallon. Add:

6 bay leaves
1 habanero, seeds and ribs removed

Cap and put it in the fridge for at least 24 hours before use.

Burn Unit's Minnesota (by way of South Carolina and southern North Carolina style) Mustard sauce:
1/4 c. vinegar (equally divided between cider, rice wine, and white vinegar)
1/2 c. ordinary yellow mustard
3/4 c. sweet*
* sweet = imprecisely measured quantities of molasses, cane sugar, and brown rice syrup. Mostly molasses though. Stir and cook for five minutes over medium heat. The "MN" comes from the molasses, really. The original variant of this sauce is an incredible and lurid looking mix of plain white vinegar, honey, and plain mustard. I thought about messing more with it, but just the tweak of the molasses was all I wanted to do.

This is a thicker sauce, probably more what people are accustomed to who don't have a lot of experience in the regional sauce variants that make up the crazy quilt of American slow cooking.

THE TASTING:

We had about 16 people there, including JJason, help im a bear, Darkaardvark, and Rao, though most of them non-players (or people who signed up but didn't ever really play). We both had groups of "biased" non player judges present so we went with a blind taste. We flipped a coin to decide who would be A (Dok) and B (BU) and portioned out a relatively small amount of each to everyone, unsauced.

After the tasting, we tallied up and it was unanimously B, which as you know stand for Burn Unit. Once that was dispensed with, we told everyone to eat and enjoy the sauces and accompaniments (a little potato salad, some Big Red pop and Grain Belt beer). Everybody ate their fill I think and were appreciative.

Burn Unit: despite the victory, and it cannot be denied that it was a wide margin, I very much enjoyed Dok's meat. It was especially well balanced with the sauce, which has a brightness I think connoisseurs will appreciate. I won twice because I got to take home the leftovers, which I thought was very gracious.

Dok H: I wasn't at the top of my game here, but I'm proud to have produced a delicious piece of meat. I'd've been disappointed if I had done a poor job and lost, but doing pretty well and having the competition be undeniably even better is probably the tastiest outcome possible.

I let BU take home the extra meat because barbecue doesn't keep forever and there are more mouths under his roof to help him dispense with the leftovers.