I've been talking about head cheese at work since we started getting the fresh pork. There just isn't really a lot of meat on these heads as they are skinned when we get them, so no snout and such. I bet with as many as we have though, I could get enough material to make a batch. Might have to move that back up on the priority list. It's worth trying for sure. We have at least a dozen of those or more. In fact there are four more pigs coming this week. We'll see. I'll start reading up.
I've been talking about head cheese at work since we started getting the fresh pork. There just isn't really a lot of meat on these heads as they are skinned when we get them, so no snout and such. I bet with as many as we have though, I could get enough material to make a batch. Might have to move that back up on the priority list. It's worth trying for sure. We have at least a dozen of those or more. In fact there are four more pigs coming this week. We'll see. I'll start reading up.
Dave
if u want to make headcheese and you have access to these heads that dont have alot of substance to them.... just add some other pork meat to the heads say maybe shank meat or leftovers from st louie trims... the heads will get you all the gelatin you need.
Charbroil SFB
GOSM
MES
Dutch Ovens and other CI
Little Chief, Big Chief, No Name water smoker
Weber 22" gold, Smokey Joe, WSM 22"
Too bad you all didn't have a few more people in attendance. I could see the heads being great 2am drunk munchie material, after the more easily palatable bits were gone......
Once you go Weber....you never call customer service....
here's some of my pics... not quite as in-depth, but i figured with those two running their cameras, there was little use in me pulling out mine. ..
The late night help... 10:58 PM, friday night... as you can tell, they are obviously doing their part:
The brisket went on around 10 PM or so friday night. this pic was about 2 hours into it... the little white bits are the pieces of scrap fat that I trimmed off earlier and soaked in the rub/injection. that way, i can let them baste the meat, but they come off much easier and i don't really have to trim it after it's cooked.
and about 4 hours in:
here's a rundown of the timelines:
Friday:
6AM - wake up, run into the office and run a couple errands, clean the house, etc.
3PM - pick up adam and his smokers, get home, set them up, and start some basic prep work
5:30 PM or so - throw some dogs and burgers on the grill for dinner.
10:00 PM - the fridge smoker gets started (no thermometers working, so we free-ball it) and the briskets gets put on. the temps were guestimated by taking the temps of fthe back wall of the smoker with an IR thermometer and adding 30-50 degrees for air temp.
Saturday
2AM - more prep work starts, Adam puts his butts on the drum, and educates me in the ways of the brine of the chicken
5AM - we crash in the house
6AM - I wake up and start running a few errands. I wake adam up (accidentally) with power tools and he gets to work on the other goodies
10AM - Dave arrives (unknowingly to me)
11:00-11:30, i arrive back home and meet dave, see his massive smoker, and get introduced to "the head".
noon'ish - the women come back and we start eating... by this time, Adam has a fatty done, his ribs are on the drum, the chicken is about to be started, my pork butt is on, and the brisket is cruising... i also now have some nice new thermometers that actually work...
2PM - adam's pork butts are off the smoker and resting
from that point out, i can't really remember much... it all happened too fast. WAY too much food, and not enough time to work it through the system... trust me, I am still feeling the aftermath.
all in all, here's the menu:
Andy
- Pork butt
- feather bones (sorta... that's another story about the ways of the drum master and me not thinking again...)
- brisket
- ABT's (about 3 dozen or so)
- burgers & hotdogs
- Baked beans with red onion, bell peppers, brown sugar, a little JD, etc.
- I was gonna do some chicken, but backed out after seeing the mass amount of food we already had
- the same thing happened with my previously-planned mac-n-cheese and cornbread... still kinda wish i did the cornbread though.
Dave
- Pig head
- Berkshire ribs - AWESOME! personally, i think they could have used a bit more moisture, but that's just me, and could be taken care of with a tad bit-o-sauce. other than that, the flavor and texture was dead-on.
Adam
- pork butts
- fattie
- st. louis ribs
- chicken (perfect)
- beans and rice side dish (also great)
- Mrs. Tang made some slaw that was out of this world also... i love it!
there were also a few things here and there that we worked on... brunt ends (my first time and they were great thanks to Adam), chips, beer, etc...
all in all, a great weekend. sure, the weather could have been a little warmer, but it wasn't bad with a few beers and a sweatshirt on. after everyone left, a couple of my other firends came over with more beer and we had a nice sized fire going in the spiffy new pit... made for a nice ending to the weekend.
Later,
Andy
Current babies:
-Daughter's 10"x24" RF smoker
-RichTee's Lang :)
Former Lineup:
-Charbroil Santa Fe grill
-1954'ish Philco fridge smoker
-1950's GE electric fridge smoker in progress (Went to WuTang and will probably never be completed. lol)
-enough beer to drown any problem/ailment you may encounter
"if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough"
BTW, U of M sucks, Go Big Red! I have bragging rights to 2018!
Current babies:
-Daughter's 10"x24" RF smoker
-RichTee's Lang :)
Former Lineup:
-Charbroil Santa Fe grill
-1954'ish Philco fridge smoker
-1950's GE electric fridge smoker in progress (Went to WuTang and will probably never be completed. lol)
-enough beer to drown any problem/ailment you may encounter
"if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough"
BTW, U of M sucks, Go Big Red! I have bragging rights to 2018!
Having had the oportunity to meet several of the people on this forum I can honestly say I'm not surprised you folks enjoyed yourselves. Great community we have here
And what a feast.
Shitload of food. Hope I can make the next one, but I don't know how I'm going to get my cooker into the backyard?? May need to make a bigger gate.
shit... yours will be lucky to fit in the driveway. lol.
Current babies:
-Daughter's 10"x24" RF smoker
-RichTee's Lang :)
Former Lineup:
-Charbroil Santa Fe grill
-1954'ish Philco fridge smoker
-1950's GE electric fridge smoker in progress (Went to WuTang and will probably never be completed. lol)
-enough beer to drown any problem/ailment you may encounter
"if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough"
BTW, U of M sucks, Go Big Red! I have bragging rights to 2018!
Current babies:
-Daughter's 10"x24" RF smoker
-RichTee's Lang :)
Former Lineup:
-Charbroil Santa Fe grill
-1954'ish Philco fridge smoker
-1950's GE electric fridge smoker in progress (Went to WuTang and will probably never be completed. lol)
-enough beer to drown any problem/ailment you may encounter
"if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough"
BTW, U of M sucks, Go Big Red! I have bragging rights to 2018!
Looks like y’all had a great time! The food all looks amazing. I’m with Squirrel though…the pig’s head did kinda freak me out, too, but I’m over it now. Can someone please put together a to go box for me like Dave’s?
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