The discussion about picnics and skin reminded me that I've had one of
those beasts in the freezer for some time. In a positive effort to Use
Meat From The Freezer I thawed some stuff with plans to cook it on
Saturday. Besides the picnic, I thawed out a rack of spares and chuck
roast.

On the subject of the picnic skin, I decided to have a go at leaving it
on. This is my first attempt at this cut. I removed the small amount of
skin on the meatier side, so I essentially had one skin side and one
bare side. I rubbed the bare side with the usual sort of mixed ground
chiles, salt, brown sugar, herbs kind of thing. The skin side I scored
in a cross-hatch pattern and salted.

I cooked it on the lower grill of the WSM, using lump charcoal and the
Minion method. I have a crabapple in front of the house, which had
medium-sized limb that died. I didn't notice it until the bark started
to flake off it, by which time I was sure it was plenty cured. I sawed
pieces off one end to get the usual fist-sized chucks of wood.

It ran at about a shade under 300 degrees as measured via a fry
thermometer in the top vent. On the top grate I started with the ribs.
When they finished after 3+ hours I swapped in the chuck roast, coated
in salt and pepper.

I took the picnic off when it read 195 on the probe thermometer. Pulled
easily. I had cooked it skin side up, and it looked great, but the skin
was still to chewy to be really tasty. Plenty of bark on the meat side,
so that didn't bother me too much. Next time I may try the same thing,
but skin side down.




Brian

Default User wrote:
snip
I took the picnic off when it read 195 on the probe thermometer. Pulled
easily. I had cooked it skin side up, and it looked great, but the skin
was still to chewy to be really tasty. Plenty of bark on the meat side,
so that didn't bother me too much. Next time I may try the same thing,
but skin side down.
Brian

Brian,

In order for the skin to "crisp" up or puff-up. the temperature needs to
high enough to fry the fat in the skin. Usually, as in cooking a whole
hog, the last thing you do is flip the pig skin side towards coals, and
pile in a large amount of coals to raise the temp much higher than
normal cooking. I also have heard that liberal amounts of salt applied
to the skin helps too.

Now all that being said, I have not tried this with a store bought
shoulder, most that I have seen, the skin appeared rather soggy looking
so I wouldn't be surprised if these techniques wouldn't work.

--
Regards, Mike (Piedmont)

http://groups.msn.com/ThePracticalBa...ewwelcome.msnw

Mike "Piedmont" wrote:

Default User wrote:
snip
I took the picnic off when it read 195 on the probe thermometer.
Pulled easily. I had cooked it skin side up, and it looked great,
but the skin was still to chewy to be really tasty.

Naturally I intended to write, "still too chewy." Sheesh. Proofread.
Proofread! PROOFREAD!!!

In order for the skin to "crisp" up or puff-up. the temperature needs
to high enough to fry the fat in the skin. Usually, as in cooking a
whole hog, the last thing you do is flip the pig skin side towards
coals, and pile in a large amount of coals to raise the temp much
higher than normal cooking. I also have heard that liberal amounts of
salt applied to the skin helps too.

Now all that being said, I have not tried this with a store bought
shoulder, most that I have seen, the skin appeared rather soggy
looking so I wouldn't be surprised if these techniques wouldn't work.

I did place the extra skin that I cut off the "meat side" on the grill
next to the picnic, and it crisped rather nicely, plus the bark
generation on the bottom was pretty serious. I run with the pan
installed but nothing in it, mainly to keep fat from dripping on the
coals. I may try skin down the whole way next time I do one.



Brian

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