Archives for March 2010 on Gimpysoft

Pulled Pork In The Weber

March 21, 2010 10:08 pm

It’s been a while since I’ve barbecued, and quite a while since I last took notes and remembered to record them. Since moving down to Florida, I’ve made several briskets and a few racks of ribs. A neighbor getting me interested in Formula 1 racing means I’ve been up early enough weekends to do some smoking.

No F1 today, but we needed to spend a day at home taking care of some tasks, so I fired up the Weber today. I’ve never tried it before, so I decided to make pulled pork. I picked up a pork butt (which counter-intuitively comes from the shoulder of the pig, I learned today) at Smitty’s down in Coral Ridge. Last night, I rubbed it with about 2 teaspoons of what was left of the rub from my last brisket, then mixed up a bit more rub from some mustard powder, garlic powder, Hungarian sweet paprika and cayenne pepper. There it sat overnight.

It was quite a pleasant day down here in Boca Raton, but a bit windy. Luckily the Weber held its heat pretty well. I flirted with buying a real smoker over the holidays, but decided against it as we’re about to buy a house. (Maybe it’s time to build a real smoker? The house we have our offer in on does have a backyard that needs work. Built in brick smokehouse as part of the patio renovation?) A little drilling and a few screws to reattach the handle, and the Weber was back in action.

The pork butt went on at 7:28 this morning. A bit later than I was hoping, but I overslept a little and the aforementioned grill repairs took a bit of time. Once getting the meat on the grill, I ran over to Publix to get a few supplies, then came home and made my mop. Today’s consisted of:

2 16oz Cans Busch
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 t salt
1 t pepper
1/2 t cayenne pepper.

Got that to a boil briefly, then it sat on the stove the rest of the day. My first addition of extra charcoal was a bit overzealous, and my temperature spiked to about 300° for about half an hour. Finally I removed a bunch of the coals, the temperature came down, and it stayed right in the ideal temperature of 215°-225° from there on out. I used up the morning’s mop around 1:00 or so, so I switched to mopping the meat with one of the other cans of Busch. (The fourth can seemed to have disappeared somewhere along the way.)

A coworker of mine has heard my complaints about Florida Barbecue one too many times and suggested I try Blue Front barbecue sauce. I guess these guys used to run a restaurant down here, but now they just sell their mustard based sauce. My coworker bought me a bottle last time he had access to it, so I thought I’d try it on tonight’s pork. It’s not the style of sauce I normally use, but it was excellent on pork.

For sides, we had to use up what was left in the fridge. Our salad was roasted beets tossed with feta and a red wine shallot vinaigrette. We finally figured out that wrapping beets in tin foil before roasting really helps the skin removal.

Bex also made some awesome smoky black beans. The beans were some of the best beans Bex has made, and she’s been making awesome beans weekly for the last year or so. We love our meat from Smitty’s, but another recent discovery is Emil’s Sausage Kitchen down on Federal Highway in Deerfield Beach. Now only are they wonderful for brats during football season, but they sell gigantic, smoky ham hocks that can just make a pot of beans. (And cheap!)

As for the main course, the sandwiches were delicious. Just the right amount of smoky, and I dare say that the mustard based sauce was nicer than my normal spicy tomato based sauce would have been. I’m glad I rememberd to get buns to make the meat into sandwiches. I just wish I had made cole slaw to go on buns. I’m very curious to try a vinegar/pepper sauce next time I try this.

For Next Time: What we ate was delicious, but since I didn’t get the internal temperature up as high as it should have the very center of the cut was still not quite as tender as the rest. I think those tougher center portions will make wonderful leftovers reheated in the oven. Also, there were bits that were tough, again I think a result of not quite being cooked long enough. (Depsite over twelve hours in the smoker.)

Still, I’ll put what I made up against any of the local restaurants I’ve been to. I didn’t go overboard with smoke, but it was exposed to enough smoke that it had a depth to it that I don’t find in the bland pulled pork I’ve had down here. Hopefully, next time I throw one of these in the Weber it’ll be at my housewarming barbecue. See you there.

Beer Snob Bicycle Pub Crawl

March 7, 2010 9:18 am

Deep in dark days of Booze Free February, my wife and I saw a post on Miami Bike Scene for the Beer Snob Bicycle Pub Crawl. It’s like this event was tailor made for me, falling just outside my self-imposed beer moratorium, and a wonderful chance to find some places for good beer in Miami while getting a bike ride in. My wife was nice enough to put together an afternoon/evening of Miami exploration herself, and dropped me off at Lincoln Road, where I walked my bike in to Zeke’s Roadhouse.

I’ve noticed Zeke’s before when we’ve been down at the Lincoln Road Mall, but I’ve never gone in. It’ll definitely go on my short list of places to go in Miami when I have friends in town. Four dollars for any of their excellent beers is what passes for a killer deal in Miami. I started off with a Titan IPA, which was a wondeful way to start the evening. When I arrived, I estimated there were 20 or so bikes chained together in front of Zeke’s. As I finished my Titan and moved on to a Black Bavarian (that was a Wisconsin beer?), people kept rolling in. I’m a terrible estimator, but I’d say we were at least a crowd of 100. With 224 confirmed on the Facebook page, I’m sure it was more.

I saw people mounting up, so I latched on to a group heading to the second location, The Abbey Brewing Company. The ride over was incredibly pleasant and the weather couldn’t have been nicer. The Abbey brews their own beer, and I started out with their IPA, which is hands down the best homebrewed/brew pub IPA I’ve ever had. I ran into the owner of one of our favorite places in Ft. Lauderdale, Brew Urban Cafe. I definitely wish there were more places like his in our area.

The ride to The DRB was definitely the most scenic, taking us over the Venetian Causeway down to the bar across from the Adrienne Arsht Center. The DRB was mainly full of people either on their way to or from Wicked, but was another nice place I didn’t know existed. I got a bit less adventurous, and went with my old standby, a Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. Having arrived at The DRB with one of the first groups, I got the Dogfish Head pretty quickly. By the time I finished it, I decided I needed something with some caffeine. The rest of the group had arrived by now, and I didn’t want to fight the crowd at the bar, so I rode over to a convenience/liquor store up the street.

I made my purchase, and started riding back to the bar. I got stopped at a light on the corner by the liquor store, and there was an older woman heading my direction on a bike stopped as well. I asked her if she was heading back to the bar as well, and she said, “No, I don’t really do that. I’m just out here trying to make some money.” I inquired as to her line of work, and she replied, “Sexual healing. Lots of men enjoy my services.” Even the prostitutes on bikes. Now that’s a bike town.

The last ride turned out to be the roughest, heading from the Arsht Center all the way down to The U. Not a super long ride, but the whole crowd is, um, in the spirit of the evening by this point, and it seemed that people who knew where they were going were few and far between. (I did not know where I was going myself.) The pack I was riding in hung together fairly well, but started to space out quite a bit. Finally we made a right turn, and most of the pack rode right up the ramp onto I-95. A group of six of us decided that might not be the wisest move and broke off to stay off interstate highways.

We took side streets down until we made it to Dixie Highway, then got on the excellent off road path underneath the Metrorail. I busted a pedal on the way in (damn cheap pedals, I’ve had nothing but problems with these), but arrived there safely just a few minutes before my wife. I said goodbye and got on home.

All in all, about 13.5 miles of riding. The crowd was definitely mainly Miami locals, but I ran into quite a few people from the Ft. Lauderdale area. It would be great if we could organize an event like this further north. I felt a bit silly driving 45 miles to go ride my bike, but I’d definitely ride out for something like this in Broward County. Thanks again to the organizers, I had a blast.

Dry February – The Aftermath

March 1, 2010 9:32 pm

Well, I kept my word and remained dry for the entire month of February. Weight didn’t really come off any more, but didn’t really go back on either.

I think the weight loss was more attributable to exercise. I was pretty good early in February, but hurt my feet later in the month and wasn’t going quite as strong later in February.

February turned out to be a rough month to go without beer. I missed the Boca Raton Beer Meetup‘s February meeting, which was at the new Funky Buddha. I’ve been looking forward to checking out their new space since I heard about the remodel, and to try some of their homebrew. Since I missed the February meetup, I guess tomorrow is the night.

A friend from Kansas City was in town for Future of Web Apps, and I got to meet up with him at the always wonderful Sra. Martinez. The food was wonderful as always, but I wasn’t able to have one of their wonderful cocktails. I did drink a Pisco Sour vicariously though my pal, though.

March first has come and gone, and I don’t feel the need to break my fast just yet. There is one beer in the fridge, but it’s a Miller Chill left over from my parents’ visit in January. It wasn’t much of a temptation in February, and it isn’t now either. I do have some decent Scotch, but I think I’ll hold out and let one of the Funky Buddha’s own beers break my fast. See you there tomorrow night.