punkerque

Man!

We always want these places to have great Q. We really, really, truly want these cool, small, ramshackle cabins with polaroids of past Presidents to have good Q. Why is it that so many of them don’t? I really don’t get it. Is it because the owners have been doing it so long they always taste smoke and don’t realize their pork could easily be mistaken for pot roast? Maybe. Maybe it was never good, but the clientele never knew any better. Maybe we always end up there on non pit days and get old meat. I have no idea, it vexes me.

Pink Pig BBQ is in Cherry Log, GA. We have driven by it several times when up north cabinizing, detoxing and retoxing. On this trip we had met with good food from GA Boys BBQ, so we were hopeful that our lingering doubts of returning home would be covered in swine goodness. Alas, the only thing that we liked about the place was the fact that they had 3 picnic tables outside so we could enjoy the Sunday morning air with our dogs.

We ordered the usual:

Husband: Pork Plate with stew, potato salad.
Punkerdoo: Pork Plate with stew, potato salad.

The meat was pre-sauced with a ketchup based sauce. The sauce was bland and not good. The pork had little to do with Cherry Logs or any other form of wood and it was cold. The Brunswick stew had ground beef in it. A first for us. Pretty sure I disliked it strongly. Once again a drag as it is supposedly, magically, arcanely cooked in a giant cast iron pot. We really want things like this to work….damn. The potato salad made Kroger’s potato salad look like a good option.

Understand, we did not want to come back home that day. We ate and left Pink Pig in a hurry. Bummer.

This is the worst review I have ever given to a Q joint. I feel bad and I hope that our visit was just a working of stars that colluded to make our food so un-memorable. Then again, it was across the board bad.

You can decide on your own.

Pink Pig
824 Cherry Log Street
Cherry Log, GA 30522

Our campsite at Road Atlanta is literally 30 feet from the back straight. People can become very hungry watching Ferraris, Porsches, Audis and other fantastic sports cars roaring by at three times the legal limit. You need food that you can ignore for hours while it cooks. You need Q.

The problem is when you are far away (in this case 43 miles) from your pit, you need to use what you have handy. In this case, we used our old water smoker and a few pieces of firewood we were not allowed to burn to keep warm. (thanks Hall county) The ingredients are simple, you need a 7-10lb pork butt and some sort of dry rub. In this case we used Bad Byron’s Butt Rub which works great if you don’t have the time or resources to make you own.

You wash the butt, pat it dry, oil it down with some olive oil (not extra virgin, no need here) and coat the outside with your rub. Some let it sit, some put it in the fridge. Me, I put it in a zip-loc or wrap it in plastic wrap and throw it on the counter (much to punkerdoo’s distress) while I make fire. Fire! Fire!

I alway make sure to fill the water bowl before I start the fire, so that it warms up as the flame gathers. The water bowl is really nothing more than a way of keeping the temp level, it doesn’t provide much (if any) moisture to the meat. At home, I always throw a bunch of aromatics in the water bowl just to make the air smell just that much better. Once you have your wood burning well; flames, but past the blaze point, throw the butt on the rack fat side up.

Come back in 4 or 5 hours to throw another log (in this case red oak and maybe some white) in the fire.

Come back in 3 or 4 hours to check the fire and the butt. It should look like you burned it to a crisp, but if you poke it with your finger, it will give way easily and ooze at you. 8-10 hours is about right for that weight and a low fire.

If you have decided the butt is done, pull it from the smoker and wrap it in aluminum foil. Let it sit (rest) for 1 hour minimum. Some people put it in a small cooler, I just make sure its not sitting on ice. Wait. You must wait.

After a minimum of 1 hour, you can pull the pork. Grab it and rip it in half. It will burn you. This is fun. If it won’t twist in half, you either bought a really crappy boston butt or you did not cook it long enough. If this is the case you will need to chop it (ever wonder why the difference in BBQ places between pulled pork and chopped pork?).

If you cooked it right it will easily shred into small pieces. You will not have to wonder if you have done it right. It it falls apart, you are golden. If not, better luck next time. When you get it right, you will know. You will start to pull the meat and you will realize the difference since the last time when it was not quite right. You will be pleased with yourself.

eat

In this example, we put the butt on around 10:30 or so in the morning, fed it a log around 3, fed it again around 6 and wrapped it about 7 or 8. Our neighbor came over about 5 and yelled at us for torturing him all day. He said “you did the same thing to me last year, starved me all day long with your smoked pork.” Sorry Barry, nothing personal.