INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

PAN SAUCE
H
"INFUSION" TECHNIQUE FOR HOMEMADE EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA STYLE BARBEQUE
Tom "Big Heat" Solomon bigheat@earthlink.net
I: INTRODUCTION:
Eastern North Carolina style barbeque is, by most accounts, the oldest
style of barbeque in the United States. Originating during Colonial times
in the coastal regions of Virginia and the Carolinas, it endures and
thrives today in the eastern third of the state of North Carolina.
According to Vince Staten and Greg Johnson, this style of barbeque
"originated in those days when people thought tomatoes were poisonous and
refused to eat them. When the early settlers wanted a seasoning for their
barbequed pig, they chose English ketchup, a vinegar seasoned with oysters
and peppers and other spices, but containing no tomato."
Staten and Johnson observe that "[today] Down East they cook the whole hog,
with no baste, over hickory coals, then 'pick' the meat off the bone, chop
it into fine hunks, and coat it with a thin, hot vinegar-based sauce."
Since cooking a whole hog is not a valid option for most home barbequers, I
have come up with a three-step "infusion" technique that yields a
reasonable facsimile of Eastern North Carolina style barbeque.
II: EQUIPMENT:
The recommended smoker for making homemade Eastern North Carolina style
barbeque is a horizontal wood-fueled smoker with an offset firebox, such as
the Brinkmann Smoke 'N Pit Professional, or similar style smokers made by
companies such as Oklahoma Joe, BBQ Pits By Klose, etc. I have had some
success using the small, vertical, $30 dollar "water smokers" as well;
however, it is an onerous process and does not, as a rule, produce the
deep, rich, smoky results that off-set smokers yield. I have no experience
with gas smokers, but many people have reported good results using gas and
wood chips and/or wood pellets. If you have a gas smoker rather than a wood
unit, I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to make a perfectly
acceptable version of Eastern North Carolina style barbeque. After all, the
key is "heat, smoke, and time," with smoke I think being the most important
element. While using gas will not make your barbeque "authentic" or
"traditional", you are not cooking a whole hog, either, so by all means use
what you have.
III: WOOD:
This technique assumes you will be using wood for both heat and smoke.
Those using wood only for smoke can make the necessary adjustments.
As noted, hickory is the traditional wood of choice for Eastern North
Carolina style barbeque. However, oak is also commonly used, and both are
good, strong, full-bodied woods. From my experience, the ideal mixture is
40 percent hickory, 40 percent oak, and 20 percent apple wood--apple
imparts a distinct, slightly sweet essence that nicely balances the
slightly bitter, high harshness of hickory and the deep, mellow baritones
of oak.
Different schools of thought exist regarding in what state (pre-burned
coals, split logs, or whole logs) the wood should be added to the burn
chamber, and what color the smoke produced by the burning should be--a
barely perceptable blue, or a clean white smoke. Nearly everyone agrees
that the wood should be well-seasoned, as green wood tends to produce a
bitter creosote that can ruin barbeque.
In my experience, the bitterness sometimes produced by a white smoke is
mitigated by the use of the infusion technique. What I do is start a fire
in the burn chamber using plain old charcoal, let the charcoal burn down to
glowing embers, and then add split wood logs, using a ratio of two dry logs
to one wet (pre-soaked) log. These are not hard and fast rules, however--I
would encourage you to experiment with pre-burned wood coals, whole logs,
all dry logs, whatever you feel would work best for your own taste buds and
expertise. The only word of caution I would add is that if, instead of
using the infusion technique you will be pulling the pork and adding a
table sauce (i.e. having a "pig pickin'"), you would be well advised to use
pre-burned coals rather than split and/or whole logs in the burn chamber.
IV: MEAT:
In a word, pork. Period. No exceptions.
How much barbeque you want to make is up to you. The ideal cut would be
what Dave Lineback calls a "barbeque cut", which is a whole shoulder (a
picnic, commonly refered to in grocery stores as a pork shoulder) and
continued in part 2

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