Smoked Pulled Pork - without a smoker!

 Pulled Pork

For those of you that love a nice smoky flavor to your meat, but do not want to spend a lot of money on a smoker, this one is for you! All you need is some wood chips, a gas grill, your favorite meat, and seasoning blend of your choice. Below is how I did my pulled pork I served at my last Birthday party. I was so good everyone went back for seconds and some for thirds and fourths.

Pick a good quality pork butt or shoulder roast with bone-in. Sirloin roast may be used as well, but it is a little drier. I found a good deal on Sirloins roast, so that's what these pictures depict.

Step one: Dry rub!

Here is my special dry rub blend, but you can use whatever you like. There are many good bottle mixes you can buy at the store as well.

1/2 c. Brown Sugar

1/4 c. Paprika

1 TBL. Onion powder

1 TBL. Garlic powder

1 TBL. Salt

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. ground mustard

1/4 tsp. cayenne

1/4 tsp. chili powder

1/2 tsp. cumin

Thoroughly rub the seasoning all over pork roast then place the roast in a contain and cover with foil or plastic wrap or place in a Ziploc bag. Let rest over night.

Step Two: Turning your gas grill into a smoker. (will not smoke as well as a real smoker, but it still adds some smokey flavor).

You will need about one cup of wood chips for every hour of smoking you plan on doing.

1. Place wood chips into a bowl and cover with water. Let soak over nights. About 24 to 36 hours is best. Just plan ahead.

Foil pouch with wood chips

2. Turn on your grill on high for a few minutes to heat up. While grill is heating, take about one cup of wood chips and wrap in tinfoil. Then poke a few holes in the top of the pouch.

3. Place the foil pouch, hole side up, directly onto the flames on the grill. Close grill and wait till you see smoke.

4. Turn the grill down to low and place your seasoned meat onto the top rack.

Pork Roast

      NOTE: The first 30 minutes are crucial. For a long smoking time, the grill should be roughly 225 degrees. If the grill is hotter than that, try turning off one side of the grill and moving the meat to the other side. For my grill, I started using both sides on low for half an hour. Then I turned down one side and moved the meat to the other. Also the smoking pouch, needs to remain on the side that is on.

5. Rotate the meat every 20 to 30 minutes watching the smoke level. As the smoke starts to die off, make another wood chip pouch and place onto the flames.

6. Once the pork roast has an internal temperature of 165 degrees it is done.

7. Remove from heat and allow to cool a little.

8. Shred the meat removing any bones.

9. Place pork into crock pot and add BBQ sauce. Let simmer on low for about three hours.

Here is my sweet and succulent BBQ sauce recipe I developed just for this pulled pork. 

BBQ Sauce Recipe:

1 C. Ketchup

1 C. Brown Sugar

1/2 C. Pepsi

1/2 C. Apple Cider Vinegar

2 TBL. Worcestershire sauce

2 TBL. Prepared Mustard

1 tsp. ground mustard

1 TBL. Hickory liquid smoke

2 tsp. Paprika

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. onion powder

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. Black Pepper

1/4 tsp. Chili powder

1/4 tsp. All spice

1/8 tsp. Cayenne

Add all ingredients together and heat to a simmer. You can use immediately after making or transfer it to a container and refrigerate for later.

If you don't quite like the sweetness of this sauce, you can adjust the vinegar and sugar levels to your liking or increase the chili powder and cayenne to increase the heat.

Hope you enjoy and Happy Grillin!

Grilled Potatoes

These phenomenal grilled potatoes are supper delicious. After cooking on the grill, they have a nice smokey flavor which goes great with hamburgers, chicken, hot dogs, or whatever main dish you cook on the grill.

 First cut potatoes into whatever shape you like. Larger wedges like illustrated here seem to work the best on the grill. I prefer to leave the skins on, by my family does not like the skins, so I usually peel them to avoid complaints.

Next place the potatoes into a pot and bring water to a boil. Boil for about two to three minutes.

Then drain and rinse the potatoes with cold water. Place them in a bowl and coat with olive oil, seasoned salt and pepper. 

Lastly, place a sheet of tinfoil onto the grill and drizzle with a little olive oil. Hint: fold edges of foil up a little to keep the oil from drizzling into the flame and causing a flare up. Dump potatoes onto foil and grill on low to medium heat until a nice golden brown. Stir gently to avoid ripping the foil. Once they are brown, you may carefully move the foil to the top rack and begin cooking whatever else you had in mind. The potatoes will stay warm on the top rack and soak up the flavor of what you are cooking underneath them. When I did these, I cooked some hamburgers and the potatoes had a nice beefy flavor. They were incredible!


 If you are a little uncertain of your skills with the tinfoil, a cookie sheet works just as good and will not rip when you try to move the potatoes.

Al's Famous BBQ Chicken

I started this blog to illustrate how easy it is to grill just about anything, but one thing I am known for is my grilled chicken. For years I've been grilling chicken for family, neighbors, and friends. So many people have asked me how I make my chicken so juicy, tender, and flavorful. The descriptions go on, but the important thing is that you can make this chicken just as good as I can. Here is a step by step process:

Step One: Dry Rub Marinade!

For those that know me well, know how difficult it is for me to give exact measurements for any recipe I use, but this time I actually measured everything so I can share it with you.

Recipe:
8 LBS Bone in Chicken Thighs and/or Drumsticks. (I prefer thighs)
1 TBL Paprika

1 1/2 TBL Brown Sugar
1/2 TBL Salt
1 tsp. Garlic Powder
1 tsp. Onion powder
1/4 tsp. Dry Rosemary
1/4 tsp. fresh ground Black Pepper
1/8 tsp. ground Dry Mustard
1/8 tsp. ground White Pepper
1/8 tsp. Cayenne (for a little more spice you can add more)
1/8 tsp. Lemon Pepper
Pinch Smoked Paprika
To make it spicy add 1 TBL Crushed Red Pepper

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly then rub onto chicken. Place chicken on a plate or in a baking pan and cover with plastic wrap or place into Ziploc plastic bags. Let marinate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

For the best flavor, I would recommend cooking over a Charcoal BBQ, but instructions here included gas grill application.

Preheat grill on high heat. Add chicken to grill and immediately reduce temperature to low heat. Rotate chicken frequently for about 30 to 45 minutes. When chicken is just about done, brush your favorite BBQ sauce on top of chicken let sit for about a minute, rotate and brush again.








Repeat the application of BBQ sauce until a nice caramelized appearance like the picture to the left.













Then transfer chicken to a large pot, cover chicken with a slightly thinned BBQ sauce and transfer pot into oven on 250 degrees. Leave in oven for about one hour or so then enjoy.

Note: The last step is not necessary, but if you have a large crowd coming over preparing ahead of time is great. It will leave your grill open for sides and other meats you wish to cook. Check out my grilled potatoes - coming soon.

Several people have asked for my BBQ sauce recipe as well, but unfortunately I do not have a homemade BBQ sauce developed yet. For now, my favorite is KC Master Piece - Hickory Brown Sugar. I then add a little bit of Pepsi to thin it out to my liking. This sauce is sweet which some people do not like. Rule of thumb, use your favorite sauce and you can't go wrong.

Grilled Pizza

So the other day I grilled a stir fry and it was quite amazing on the grill. Because I love grillin' so much, I decided to challenge myself a little and try grillin' unusual things. Yesterday, I grilled some garlic bread, but this was not much of a challenge.

I also decided to grill a pizza. I made it a little too big, so I had to fold it in half. Truthfully, I cannot make a good pizza dough so I bought this pizza from Papa Murphy's. Either way, it was fantastic and had a nice smoky flavor from the grill.

It did not take as long as I thought to grill and since I folded it in half, it made it easy to thoroughly cook.

This looks a little more like a calzone so the next time I try grillin' a pizza, I will make (buy) it a little smaller and will not fold it. Either way it was fun and I can't wait for the next grillin' challenge.


What shall I grill next?

Send me your challenges and I will post pictures and comments on how to accomplish it. Just remember, not everything can be grilled, but the list of items that cannot is small.