For our Earth Hour party this weekend I made something I haven’t made in years: North Carolina barbecue.  Barbecue in the United States varies widely across regions.  In North Carolina, when you say “barbecue”, by definition you mean pork (unless you qualify it by naming another kind of meat).  Typically this is slow-roasted and smoked pork with a vinegar-based sauce.   Note that in NC the word “barbecue” never refers to the apparatus you use to cook the meat like it does here in Australia (although the word my have its origins in the apparatus).  It is also seldom used as a verb.

When I was living in Chapel Hill, NC, my friends and I had a tradition of having an annual “Pig Pickin’” every autumn. We only actually roasted a whole pig once.  After that we learned that it’s much easier to just roast pork shoulders.  It’s a little more expensive, but you get a lot more meat of higher quality and you don’t have to deal with the remains of the carcass.

This year I only cooked for about 10-15 people, so I only needed two boneless pork shoulders, each about 1.1 Kg (2.4 lbs).  I smoke-roasted the shoulders one at a time on our Weber charcoal grill using a technique that my mom developed.  The resulting barbecue is smoky and succulent.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to find pork whose provenance was known and transparent, so I have no idea if these pigs were ethically raised or raised in a factory farm.  I’ve made a vow recently to only buy meat for which I know these details (we already eat only free-range chicken and eggs), so the next time will be different.

Preparing the Grill

My Weber has partitions that can be used to pile the charcoal on the sides.  I used these to make sure there is no fire directly under the pork shoulder, which sits in the center of the grill.  You can also buy charcoal baskets from Weber to make this easier.  In between the partitions I placed a an aluminum roasting tin underneath where the meat would site to catch the drippings.  I put a small pile of 10-12 charcoal bricks on each side of the grill, lit them, and waited until the coals were hot.  Meanwhile, I prepared the “smoke packets”.

I used a pre-made mix of wood chips for smoking, made up of hickory, mesquite, and “cabernet-soaked” Oak chips.  Don’t wet the wood chips as you would if putting them directly on the coals.  Instead, wrap a handful of chips into an aluminum foil “packet”, and then pierce the top of the packet all over with small holes.  I made 6 of these packets, and I refilled them after the first shoulder was done.

Roasting the Pork

When the coals are hot (ideally the temperature inside the grill should be about 300° F / 150° C, but don’t worry if it’s a little hotter — giving it the cold shoulder will cool it down a bit), place a smoke packet on each pile of hot coals, replace the grill over the coals, and put the pork shoulder in the center.  Insert a probe thermometer into the center of the shoulder.  My thermometer is electronic, with a long lead that lets me read the temperature without opening the grill. Cover the grill.  Make sure the vents at the top and bottom of the grill are open.  I usually leave the bottom ones about half-closed so the coals don’t get too hot.

The smoke packets will only last about an hour each sitting directly on the coals, and you will probably need to add coals to keep the temperature where it needs to be.  Every 75-90 minutes, remove the lid from the Weber and lift the grill (with the meat on it) out and set it on top of a roasting tray.  Add 2-3 coals to each pile, and swap out the smoke packets for fresh ones.

The shoulders took about 3.5-4 hours each to roast.  When each one finished, I let it rest for an hour or two, but before it was completely cool I chopped it up.  You want the chopped pork to have a mix of piece sizes, with some tiny bits and some pieces about as big around as your thumb.

Pour a small amount of the sauce on the chopped meat, just enough to moisten it, and stir it up.  Serve hot on bread rolls with cole slaw on top.  Serve some of the sauce on the side for people who like a bit more.  Delicious!

The Sauce

Even within NC, barbecue sauce is regional.  This recipe, from our family friend Leibert Divine, is for an eastern NC sauce; it’s mostly vinegar with very little tomato and a lot of chilli and pepper.  In western NC it’s more tomato-based, but still with a lot of vinegar.   This sauce is very spicy.  But with good juicy smoky pork, you don’t need much of it.  This recipe is as Leibert makes it.  I made a much smaller batch [my measurements are in brackets below].

Leibert’s BBQ Sauce

• 1 gallon of apple cider vinegar                                              [500 ml]
• 1 small can of crushed red chilli                                            [50 ml]
• 1 small can black pepper                                                      [3.5 tablespoon]
• ½ cup salt                                                                           [3-4 teaspoon, to taste]
• 2-3 cups of store-bought BBQ sauce (or tomato juice)           [< 1/2 cup, to taste]

Combine everything and bring it to a boil, then let cool and put it back in a vinegar jug. Keeps on the shelf forever!