Linkdown: 1/29/20

RIP to another classic NC barbecue joint: Hill’s Lexington Barbecue in Winston-Salem has closed after 68(!!) years

Prime BBQ will finally open this March in Knightdale

A decent list from Big 7 Travel of the 25 best barbecue places in NC, but there are also some head scratchers

Texans are starting to go whole hog for…well, you know

Barbecue historian Robert Moss digs deep to find out where the idea of “pulled pork” came from when most pork barbecue (aka “barbecue”) is chopped in the Carolinas

RIP Woody Phillips of Woody’s Bar-B-Que in LA

Condé Nast Traveler with their list of favorite Austin barbecue joints

Always worth revisiting this gem from Our State Magazine

A few of Charleston’s less-heralded barbecue joints have closed: Smoke BBQ and Black Wood Smokehouse

Smoking wings for the big game? Jess Pryles has you covered

Linkdown: 1/30/19

Vote in USA Today’s 10Best Reader’s Choice Awards for Best Barbecue in NC

Stamey’s Barbecue with a mini-tweet storm last week; none of which is wrong (click on the tweet below to see the rest):

Sometime it pays to have the fire chief as your pitmaster; a fire broke out in the smokehouse of Skylight Inn last week but Sam Jones was among the firefighters who put the fire out

Rock the Block in downtown Charleston is Saturday, February 23 and benefits Hogs for the Cause; Sam Jones and Justin and Jonathan Fox of Fox Bros BBQ will be in attendance

Conde Nast Travel recently profiled Birmingham and its reinvention and shouted out Rodney Scott’s BBQ, which is opening a store there in 2019

“The city caught my attention because of how pleasant it is,” says Rodney Scott, the James Beard Best Chef Southeast 2018 for his Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston. He’s set to open his next, identical concept in Birmingham first-quarter 2019. “It’s a big city, but it feels like a small town,” he says. “It doesn’t feel like New York or Chicago, but it’s just as important a food city in my opinion.”

WBTV in Charlotte recently featured the “Love Endures” mural by artist Curtis King, which was saved from demolition and now resides behind Sweet Lew’s BBQ

The New York Times’ eating guide for Atlanta for this weekend’s Super Bowl and gives Bryan Furman and B’s Cracklin’ Barbecue a shoutout for being the only whole hog joint in town

Sure, why not?

Photo Gallery: Smoking a pork butt Lexington-style

Monk: For this year’s annual Super Bowl smoke, I knew a few things going in:

  1. I was going to use a Big Green Egg to smoke a pork butt for the first time (the BGE was my neighbor’s)
  2. I wanted to try to smoke it and serve it a little more authentically Lexington-style, particularly the rub

The NC BBQ Society’s website has been my go-to page for a Lexington-style dip recipe (that is, a thin barbecue sauce for those of you not in the know) the past few years (recipe here) while using a rub of my own (or Speedy’s) concoction. All these years, they’ve had a recipe for “Cooking Pork Shoulders Lexington Style” just a little further down the page that I’ve been ignoring. Turns out this is actually a transcription of a recipe from the book “The Best Tarheel Barbecue: From Manteo to Murphy” by NC BBQ Society founder Jim Early, which I just so happen to own. So I’ve really had no excuse not to try this technique before now.

On that page, in terms of rub it states “Rub the exposed side of the meat (not skin side) with a fair amount of salt. Set aside at room temperature.” And that’s it. I had to re-read a few times just to be sure I wasn’t missing something. No other spices, no overnight rub – this really was going to be a different technique than I was used to.

Doing a quick Google search, I found some corroborating evidence that salt only is indeed the way that the Lexington Barbecue rubs its pork butts (a second source here also somewhat verified it). So my mind was made up – I just hope it wouldn’t be a bust for our annual Super Bowl Party but it seemed so simple so what could go wrong?  At least we had 100 takeout wings as backup.

Speedy: Just to interject here, Monk, but I’m not sure I buy it. Maybe it’s been in the dip all these years, but I feel like I get some peppery goodness in all the Lexington ‘cue. I’ll reserve judgment until I try it for myself, but it just doesn’t feel right.

Monk: I was skeptical too, but I’m confident you will recognize Lexington in this technique. Next time we get a chance, we should do a side by side with just salt versus a more peppery rub.

The morning of, I rubbed about a ¼ cup of Morton’s coarse kosher salt on the smaller 5 lb pork butt and set aside at room temperature while I got the Big Green Egg lit – though admitedly this took a little longer seeing as this was my first time and I was starting solo.

Outside of that, everything else went about the same as a normal smoke. About 8.5 hours later, I pulled the butt off and let it rest for about an hour before chopping it and adding the Lexington dip.

I must say, I do believe this was the closest I’ve come to recreating Lexington-style pork butts at home. A slider with this chopped pork, a red slaw that Mrs. Monk prepared, and some Texas Pete tasted pretty darn close to what you might find in Lexington. I’m not saying its going to replace a trip to Lexington #1 anytime soon, but its not bad for a backyard smoke.

Recap: 2015 Super Bowl Smoke

If you are a longtime reader of our blog (do those exist?) then you will recall that for the past two Super Bowls, Speedy and I have taken the opportunity to step out from behind our blogger notepads and laptops for the Monk family annual Super Bowl party. Two years ago, Speedy and I competed head to head in a smoke off of pork butts and wings (in which I edged him out just slightly). Last year, we tackled our first brisket. This year, turns out Speedy was going to be out of town for the Super Bowl so I would have to go my own way (go my own way).

I started the night before by rubbing the meat with the “Luv Rub” that I picked up from Boone’s Bar-B-Que Kitchen. In year’s past I had mixed my own rub but decided to go the easy way this year. Besides the ease of simply sprinkling from the bottle, the rub itself enhanced the meat nicely.

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In terms of prep, that was basically it until my alarm woke me up at 5am to start the fire. In the smoke off two years ago, I didn’t get the fire going and get the meat on until close to 9am and felt like the pork butt could have used another hour or two so I wasn’t going to make that mistake this year. By 5:45 I had the meat indirectly set over the coals and had a pretty good smoke going. This time I decided to smoke it fat side up just to see if I noticed a difference.

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Outside of a brief nap around 6:30am, I stayed up and checked the temperature every 20-30 minutes for the next 11 or so hours. At around 4:30 the meat temperature had reached 190 degrees and it had a good bark, so I pulled the meat off the grill and let it sit for about an hour before chopping.

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After I chopped the butt I added some homemade Lexington dip to the pan and served to the party. I was really happy with how it came out and thought the rub from Boone’s worked out really well. I’m not sure that I noticed a huge difference smoking the butt with the fat side up, but it didn’t screw anything up so I would do it that way again. I also got some really good feedback from the crowd at the party.

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Once again, I was really happy with how it turned out and besides that, it was a lot of fun to smoke it on my own. I can’t wait until the next opportunity to try it again.

Monk