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Pork Shoulder Steaks - Pork Butt Sliced for Pork S…oked 3 Ways!
- Hey, everybody. I'm Joey, and today we're talking pork steaks, a Midwest classic. I'll introduce you to some experts to learn more about this cut and how it's cooked. So follow me and let's turn up the tasty. We're gonna visit Goshen Butcher Shop, which has been located right here in Edwardsville since 1947, and that right there is decades of experience. We're gonna meet with the owner, Jeff, whose grandfather was a farmer, and he wants to continue the passion for quality meats. So follow me. - This was built in '47. It was affectionately called the Meat Locker or the Blocker Plant. Back in the day, no one had freezers and so there's a massively large freezer here with 600 lockers in it. We've probably processed over 100 sides of beef every week, and the end product ended up in a locker. Mom would bring me up here as a kid. Get on a ladder, get in the locker, get her meats for the week, and go home and make her meal. - Today, we're gonna learn more about pork steaks. So, Jeff, can you tell us exactly what is a pork steak? - So the pork steak itself actually started here in St. Louis with the Schnucks family, but it comes off the pork shoulder. You've seen the bone and it's actually the scapula. It's also been referred to as a picnic roast. There's the Boston butt, and I think Mike and T will tell you more about that a little bit later. But it's an age old cut, and here in St. Louis, they invented a way to take that shoulder and put it into a more affordable steak for families to put on the grill. - Well, this is the pork shoulder here. And when you slice it, you wanna slice it this way here. That way, you always wanna put it all through the bandsaw first, that way it comes out a nice even steak. - Okay, so we have a bone coming right through the middle of here, right? - Right here. You can see the bones right here. - [Joey] Is there a standard size for cutting pork steak? - Usually we cut them three quarter inch but you know, we have people come in, get an inch and half, two inches. - All right, just for everyone at home now, this is the exact same cut of pork we would use if we're gonna make pulled pork, for example, right? - Correct. - Okay. - You just smoke the whole thing. See how that comes out now? - Good to see you man. - You too, Joe. - How you doing, brother? - Good buddy, how you doin' today? - Good! So how do you know the folks here at Goshen? - Well, I been coming here since I was a little boy and, you know, obviously with what we're doing in Conlinsville, Illinois, we like to team up with other local companies that are good for community as well. - Yeah! - Here you go, man. - Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. - So you're gonna take, and you're gonna show us today how to cook some of these pork steaks we just saw cut here in the shop, right? - Yes sir. - Oh man, I'm so pumped for that. I mean, these guys, not only do they own a spice sauce company, and barbecue company, really, but you guys are also have won many awards for barbecue competitions as well, is that right? - We do. We've been competing roughly going on a decade now, I believe. Started off in a back yard, uh Chris just started runnin' with it. Chris is the head dude in charge. - Yeah. - Of the competition team. So, lots of awards but probably our favorite award is the Memphis in May perfect score for our sauce. - Yeah, awesome. - We have a first place national barbecue sauce award as well. And this past year, we took another perfect score at Memphis in May. - Awesome man. Well, I'm looking forward to trying some of these pork steaks. I know you're gonna cook them a few different ways. I won't spoil it all, but follow me and we're gonna go back to Mike's kitchen and we're gonna see how it's done. - We're hangin' out with some friends here today in addition to Mike, and over here we have Dayton. Tell us a little more about what you're cooking over here man. What are you seasoning up? - We've got a tri-tip here, two of them. I'm doing salt and pepper on the tri-tip. We got some pork chops, couple of pork steaks over here. We're just gonna do salt and pepper on these bad boys. Do something a little bit different, get a different taste. - Yeah. - I like salt and pepper on my beef. Tri-tip comes from Santa Maria, California in the 50's. Guy and Safeway used to chop this up for hamburger meat and he's like, "Wow, we got too much hamburger meat. "Let's try to slow roast this tri-tip, see what happens." - Yeah. - That's where the tri-tip started, was in Santa Maria, California. - Right. So I love tri-tip. It's an amazing cut of beef, for those of you at home who haven't tried it out. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you're gonna cook these once they're seasoned? - So, I'm gonna do a two zone on this, actually on the briquette over there. - Okay. - We're gonna set a two zone smoke. We're gonna have the tri-tip on the cold side, is what I would call it-- - Yeah. - and we'll do a reverse sear once we get an internal temperature of about 110 to 15 degrees-- - Yeah. - we're gonna sear it on the hot side. - Yeah. - That is the best way, in my opinion, to do a tri-tip. - Awesome, man. I'm getting hungry just hearing about it. I can't wait to see how they turn out. We're back with Mike from Code 3 Spices and he's gonna show us how to cook these pork steaks three different ways. He has an amazing collection of grills and smokers so I'm truly excited to see what you make today. But first, like any good kind of meat, it begins with the seasoning. Mike, what are we gonna use today, brother? - Well, today, we got these pork steaks here. Today we're gonna be using 5-0 Rub. This is our sweet and sassy blend. We're gonna just use this straight across the board. It's a nice blend, it's a lot of sweet on the front, nice little pickup on the back. We'll show you here in a second on the premier, but we're at about 160 right now on the premier and it just gives a nice mahogany color. - Yeah, so this is not a paid sponsorship. This is not a paid post. We're here showing you guys from the experts how to cook these at home. And Mike, I really love some of your spices and rubs, but one of my favorite is probably your Backdraft rub. And I'll tell ya, I think Frank's RedHot is gonna have to change your say because I put that shit on everything, man. - It's a good rub. - Truly fantastic. - We like it a lot. Chris developed all these blends and one thing I like about the Backdraft is that it does have a nice smokey flavor to it. So one thing I'm gonna show you real quick while I'm doing this, just to give the people at home an idea, you don't have to go crazy to get to get a lot of flavor but I do like to cover the entire surface. So, I'm gonna go a little lighter on this side when we flip these, I'm gonna go heavy. So what I'm gonna have Dayton do here is, go ahead and flip those and if you just want to-- - [Joey] Uh, this is just what we talk about in almost every video we make. Make sure to use liberal seasoning. A lot of times, the seasoning will stick to the grill grates or stick to the smoker so you wanna make sure you add plenty to let those flavors shine through. - [Mike] I go real heavy right down the center. It looks like a lot of rub, it is a lot of rub, but, it's just enough to take on top and settle. And after a couple minutes, when we're done here, you're gonna see how quickly this settles in. We use really high end ingredients. We use turbinado sugar which has an extremely high burn rate and that's really a good key to producing a good product as well. - [Joey] Yeah. Awesome, man. Well I'm looking forward to gettin' these things on the grill and in my belly. Mike's gonna show us how to cook these pork steaks three different ways. Starting with the first method, can you tell us what we're using and how that makes a difference to the end product? - Yeah, absolutely. So, today, we're using a Hunsaker Smoker. They're based out of Colombia, Missouri. Really good group of guys. This is a stainless. There's maybe only two or three of these made. This is my prized possession here. This is a hot and fast smoker, so basically, what's nice about this, a lot of the competition guys on the circuit, they went hot and fast. One, there's a lot of science behind it, but two, you save a ton of time. - Yep. Absolutely. - You get to socialize more, drink more with your buddies, get some more sleep and whatnot. But what I like about this is, you can simplify the cook, because once it's pegged at 300, you just let ride. - Sure, now you said hot and fast. This essentially looks to me like a barrel smoker. Is that correct? - It is. It's a barrel smoker or UDS, Ugly Drum Smoker. - Okay. - There's a lot of popular ones on the market. There's different variations of one. You got pit barrels, you have gateways, but I like to choose Hunsaker. One, like I said, just a great family and it's just a hell of a product. - Absolutely. So are all drum smokers hot and fast or is that just how you're using this method today? - Well, I mean, ideally, you can bring it down to 225, 200 if you want. - Okay. - It sort of defeats the purpose. If you wanna let this thing rip and cook it at 350, you can do that. Some guys will do that, especially with briskets and whatnot. I like it at 300, I know my times, and it's just easier, and, like I said, more simplified. - Absolutely, man. So what are what are we gonna fire this up to today? - Well, before we move onto the next one, we're using Rockwood Charcoal right here. So, as you can see, it's a lump charcoal. - Yup. - It burns very hot. It burns very clean. And, that's the other thing people need to realize at home, is that there's a lot of different products on the market. - Yup. - So, with this being clean right here, I got my bag of Rockwood right here. If you pull through this bag, you're gonna get different sizes of lump. - Mm-hm. - If you run into a bigger piece, you go ahead and break it in half and use it towards whatever advantage you're doing to light your fire. But this burns very hot, very clean, and just provides a really good taste. - Yeah, so taste, profile-wise, is it gonna taste very similar to any other smoke? Is the main advantage here just getting it done quicker via hot and fast method versus slow and low method? - Well, it's interesting because, as you know, we have a barbecue sply in Collinsville. - Absolutely. - A lot of backyard guys, even enthusiasts, are moving to these just because you're saving time. - Yup. - Now, when we move over to the pellet smoker, you know, that's one of those things where basically, if you've gotta cut the grass or go to little Timmy's ball game or not wanna have to manage the fire and worry about it, you just set it, forget it, let it go, right? - Right. - With this, it's almost the same way. I mean, as long as you have your pit dialed in, it's gonna run at 300 for hours. - Awesome man. Let's go ahead and get these pork steaks on the grill and move over to the second method. All right, so Mike, we're here with method number two. Looks like we have a Weber kettle grill right here. - We do. This is the Master Touch, this is the new Ivory that just came out this year. I love Weber's. The first thing I ever cooked on was a Weber kettle. - Okay. - They actually had a little Smokey Joe in college. Went up to the 18 inch, went up to the 22 inch, went up to the Weber Smokey Mountain. So, I'm just a big fan of Weber grills. The reason I'm choosing this today is, I grew up on, not only Weber pork steaks, Weber-grilled pork steaks, but gas grilled pork steaks-- - Okay. - That hot sear. The one thing I like about this is that, we're gonna get this hot with just Kingsford original. - Okay. - It's not gonna be two zone. It's gonna be straight charcoal. - Okay. - So, the thing about that is, when you're cooking with a higher heat, you're gonna break down all the sugars in your sauce and that's a key component to a good pork steak. I don't know if I've ever had a pork steak that wasn't sauced. - Right. - And I've had thousands of them, as you can tell. But, with that said, the one thing that's nice about cooking on a Weber is you can go direct flame. We're not using any accessories like grill grates that are gonna eliminate any flare-ups. - Okay. - I want the flare-ups. - Okay. - We're gonna have a spray bottle of water and that's gonna help us manage the fire. - All right, this is really a grill for the every man. I know most people watching at home probably already have a Weber kettle grill right at home. So you talked about using Kingsford on this one. Can you tell us a little bit about why you're using Kingsford versus Jumbo lump charcoal? - Well, like I said, Rockwood charcoal, in my opinion, is the best lump on the market. - Yup. - But like I said, it burns hot. - Yup. - Burns really clean, like I said. With this, this is just gonna burn more evenly. It's got a slower burn rate to it so it's not gonna get this thing 700 degrees. I want it around 600 degrees for direct flame. - [Joey] Wow, so we're just gonna get a pile of flames right in the middle, get 'em nice and hot and put the pork steak right on top. - [Mike] Correct. - [Joey] Awesome, I can't wait to see how it turns out. = [Mike] Good deal. - So we're back for the third and final way to cook pork steaks. Mike, can you tell us a little more about how you're cooking here? - Yeah, so, basically, as I told you earlier, the pork steaks that we got from Goshen today are three-quarter inch. - [Joey] Yup. - I like them a little bit thicker. I treat pork steaks like I do a pork butt on the pellet grill. So today we're using Smokin Brothers 30 P. It's a fantastic pellet grill. This is 792 square inch is the cooking space and I'm gonna show you real quick what this looks like. We're probably, if I had to guess, we're probably around 160. It's about time to wrap them. - [Joey] Okay. - But I only got three on here. Let me show you the color this is gonna put off. - [Joey] Ah, I can't wait. - [Mike] I'm using a cherry pellet from Lumberjack that provides a nice mahogany and goes really well with the 5-0 rub that we're using. - [Joey] Yeah. - [Mike] So, as you can see, it's already getting that beautiful mahogany. Okay, so we're sitting at about 150 to 160. This one's sitting at 155. We're gonna go ahead and take these off. We're gonna put them in some beat, uh-- can't even talk. Butcher paper. And we're gonna add some brown sugar, some honey, and a couple secret ingredients. - [Joey] So, why are you gonna wrap them? I mean, what's the benefit of wrapping these up? - Well, like I said, I like treating pork steaks like I do pork butts. - [Joey] Yup. - The wrapping process sort of pushes through the stall, gets them a little bit quicker. But ultimately, we're gonna take these between 200, 205. - Awesome. Awesome. Well, again, can't wait. Now, those of you at home, you may not know Mike was previously a police officer. Mike, can you tell us what you're using the cuffs for. Are these used for cooking or, can you tell us more about those? - They're not used for cooking. They're there for convenience in case I need them right away. - All right man, well, good. We're gonna wait til these get done and be right back. - All right, so these are the pork steaks which have been on the pellet grill. Mike, how long have they been smoking? - Uh, these went on at 8:00 AM. I don't know what time it is now. - Okay, it's about 1? - All right, so we're looking at 5 hours. - Okay. - We're at 160. As you can tell, like I showed you on that last part, beautiful color, man. Look at the color on that. - [Joey] Absolutely. - [Mike] So, what we're gonna do-- - [Joey] They're lookin' tasty. - [Mike] Absolutely. So, what Dayton's gonna do here, he's gonna show you the wrapping process. We're using peach butcher paper, we're using C&H pure cane sugar, brown sugar, some Kerrygold, and the other thing is, too, I know our buddy Malcolm talks about it, but he likes using Amish butter. - Yeah. - If you don't have access to Amish butter, this Kerrygold does great. And this isn't actually, this is actually and unsalted butter. - Right. - Kerrygold. - Now, for everyone at home who doesn't know who Malcolm is, he's talking about Malcolm Reed, who operates How to Barbecue Right, huge channel on YouTube around barbecuing and smoking. And so, you said this is peach butcher paper, right? So why are you using this instead of, let's say, foil? - Well, for one, I think it's less clean up. I think it adds a little bit more value when it comes to placing it on a grill and watching it soak and seep through. - Yup. - I don't know if there's a real big difference between peach butcher paper and aluminum foil. They both do the job. - Okay. - But I had some of this laying around so I wanted to show the people how to do it with this process, the peach butcher paper. - Awesome. So let's get them seasoned. - Cool. - I'm gonna start with the brown sugar. Just put a little bed of that down first. Put a couple pieces of butter down there. Go ahead and grab one of these nice lookin-- - [Mike] That's beautiful. - [Dayton] Just go ahead and put some of that honey on there. - [Mike] So we got some Beesting, we're using apple habanero today. We're not gonna go crazy. - [Dayton] Woo! - [Mike] Just enough. - [Dayton] Little more honey on there. - [Joey] Turn up the heat on that meat, man. - [Dayton] Whenever we wrap this, you wanna wrap it real tight. So I'm gonna tuck that in, bring both my sides in. This peach paper, whenever it gets wet, the tensile strength on it is really strong. That moisture is not gonna soak out of the bottom of that. We're gonna put it on the smoker just like that. - [Joey] Awesome. - [Mike] Let's do another one. Wanna throw another pat of butter on there real quick, brother? - [Dayton] Use some more butter. Never have too much butter. - [Mike] There you go. - Should we do another one in slo-mo? - Slam it down. - Slam it down, get your butter, boom. Now, don't forget, very important: wrap it tight. - [Joey] Now, when it comes to the brown sugar, is there any advantage to using, let's say, granulated brown sugar? - You know, I think it's personal preference. I mean, this is backyard cooking 101-- - Yeah. - So, you know, I know a lot of guys can be, especially if they got different ways of doing things. - Yep. - For backyard purposes, I mean, that'll work and take care of what you gotta do. - Awesome. Well let's get these back on the smoker, let it reach temperature and get ready to get hungry. - So, one thing that I am gonna do, is I'm gonna go ahead and crank this up. I've got it set at 260 now. We're gonna push it through the process. Just gonna go back on here and I would expect another hour and half, two hours and they'll be ready to go. - [Joey] So what's the internal temperature we're gonna hit on these when we know that they're done and ready to-- - We're gonna take these between 200 and 205. - [Joey] Okay. - 203 is the magic number. Here's the thing; pork steaks have a lot of collagen. Got a lot of collagen. So that's another big reason that we do wrap most of the time. You wanna break down that collagen because whenever that temperature gets to about 195 and higher, that collagen's gonna break down and turn into a gelatin and that's where you get your fat, your flavor, and all the good juicy stuff. - [Joey] All right, so if we could these to, let's say, USD minimum of 145, sounds like we're gonna end up with, what I call a Michelin special. It's gonna be rubbery and tough to eat. Is that right? - It's gonna be rubbery, tough to eat, and the sad part about it, or the saddest part about it is, you're not gonna have as much flavor. - Right. - You wanna maximize your cook to yield the most flavor possible. - Yeah, and so when we go to that higher temperature, I think that's really gonna allow the fat to sort of really break down and almost melt in your mouth and be something that really compliments the flavor versus gets in your way, right? - Exactly. - Awesome. So, Mike, I see we have some sauce out here. Can you tell us what you're getting ready to do now? - We have our world championship Patriot Sauce Original. What I like to do is take about a half a gallon, put it in a half pan, I'll go ahead and do about half to three-quarters of our spicy. - Mm-hm. Turn up the heat a little bit. - That'll give a nice little kick on the back end. And I'm gonna add a little bit of honey. That'll buy us a nice shine. And I'll add a little bit of brown sugar to it as well. What we'll do is, we'll get this on a heating device, break down some of those sugars-- - [Joey] Yeah. - [Mike] And it'll be ready to go for saucing all of our pork steaks. - [Joey] All right, so when do we sauce these things? Before we put them on? Or, what's the right time? - No, you don't wanna sauce before. Saucing is the last part of the cook. As we covered earlier, the seasoning, you want that seasoning to settle, caramelize, and buy that nice color, and that color's gonna provide a little bit of a mark-- - Yeah. - Or crust depending on how hot you cook it, and that's gonna be flavor. This is gonna come on the backside towards the end of the pork steak cut. - All right, so for everyone watching at home, knowing that the saucing happens after they've been cooking for a little bit, is there a good internal temperature when you say, "Hey, now is the right time to sauce," when it reaches 160, 170, what is that? - Well, since we're smoking on a Hunsaker, that's gonna come towards the later part of the cook. - Okay. - Same way with the pellet grill. But when we hop on the Weber kettle, we're gonna sauce probably half-way through and just gum it up, break out all those sugars-- - Sure. - And make it real sticky. - And we're gonna wait a little longer on the Hunsaker because that's a hot and fast, as you mentioned earlier? - Correct. It's probably gonna take about two and a half hours to wrap those pork steaks on a Hunsaker. - Awesome. So, we're gonna get this off, we're gonna get this heated up, right? - [Mike] Yes sir. - [Joey] So, we don't wanna put it on cold. - [Mike] No. - [Joey] Is that correct? - [Mike] Nope, you wanna go ahead, get it heated up, break down those sugars and that'll allow the flavor to come out. - [Dayton] This right here, why? Look at the . See all that moisture in there? There we go. - [Mike] We're gonna go ahead and let these rest for about ten minutes. - [Mike] See how tight? - Well, one of our pork steaks is done. This is one we did on the Weber kettle grill. We're havin' a few beers, and I'm gonna turn in over to the three bearded bros for a quick taste test. So, dig in guys and see what you think. - Don't have to tell me twice. - I'm gonna get this one. Ooh, I wanted that one. - I know, he did. - That's ridiculous. - You can really taste a little bit of that heat. - Yeah. - And the habanero honey. - Yeah, it makes sense. It's part of the shine in that honey. - Yeah, it tastes absolutely fantastic. So, as three St. Louis area boys yourselves-- - Yeah. - I know you've had a lot of pork steaks, what do you guys think? Is this your preferred method for doing pork steaks? Do you prefer them smoked? What do you guys say? - I definitely like doing it this way. You have a smokey flavor to it, the sweetness of the sauce, and that habanero honey. That's a nice touch. - It really is. There's a nice char on the outside of it. - Char's great. - And one of the big advantages to cooking this way is, you don't have to spend, as Mike said earlier, seven hours standing around the smokers. We're just wrapping up here with Mike at Code 3 Spices. You've had a ton of great food. Thanks for having us over today, brother. We had a blast. - It's been my pleasure. - Yeah, man, absolutely. So why don't you tell everybody at home, how can they find Code 3 around the interwebs or how to buy your products online? - We're all over the St. Louis area. We're in the majority of ACE Hardwares. You can go to our website at Code3Spices.com. In St. Louis, we're in Schnucks, Dierbergs, Supplement Superstores, Straub's, HEB, Jewel-Osco in Chicago. We're working our way across the country right now. - Awesome, man. Well, hey, if you're at home, you're looking for a great way to turn up the tasty on your next meal, go ahead and check them out. Now Mike, let's get back to this delicious food. - Right on, brother. - All right, man. I'm here with a very good barbecue dog named Brisket, and we've had a great time today. I hope you have too. We've learned a lot about the history of pork steaks, how to cook them, and best of all, some of the great people of the barbecue world. We strive to show you in every single video, how to cook meet made easy, and we hope we achieved that toady. We hope you like the video. So, follow me as we continue our adventures of cooking meat made easy. Now, let's turn up the tasty.
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