Pork belly burnt ends- first attempt

[Blowin' Smoke]

After seeing some recent posts about pork belly burnt ends, I thought I’d give it a try. So I got my pork belly and set up my WSM with some hickory and apple chunks and let her go.

I rinsed the belly, cut it in half to roughly 4# each, and dried. There was no skin, but a pretty good layer of fat. I figured they’re supposed to be fatty, so no big deal. I seasoned with my bbq rub and threw on the smoker (two halves) at 235.

After three hours it was only at 145, so I figured it may speed up the process if I went ahead and cubed it all. Now I had read 1.5-2” cubes, and mine were on the 2” side. So I added more seasoning, and threw the cubes back on.

After two more hours the top and bottom was pretty solid bark but the sides were still not how I wanted them to be. Temps were 170-180 for the cubes. But it was 9:00 and I knew I still needed to sauce them, so I pulled them off and brought them inside.

I trayed, added SBR and a bit of honey, foiled and threw in the oven (don’t shoot) at 275. I pulled about 2 hours later and the temps were 200-206.

My thoughts:
The meat tasted great. It was porky, sweet, and just delicious. However, there was a lot of fat. A lot. And the sides didn’t really have any bark so the fat was even more noticeable. The melt in your mouth fat (think ribeye, or bacon) I can do. But this wasn’t that. It was noticeable to the point that I was scraping fat off.

Mistakes:
I think I should have trimmed the fat from the get go, I should have cubed at the beginning, and maybe used a binder? EVOO or mustard?

I’ll definitely do them again, just differently. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Smoke Dawg]

Hey Smoke, I made these yesterday also.

I trimmed the belly, rubbed and on the stick burner fat side up for a few hours until about 145°.

Cubed in 2" squares, into a foil pan with butter and maple syrup. Cover and back on.

They generated a lot of fluid (rendered fat) so I turned them in it twice and kept going until they were almost fall apart. (190° - 200°)

Drained off the juices (saved to make sauce) cover in BBQ sauce and back on covered for 30 minutes and then uncovered to crisp up a bit.

They made great little slider pork nuggets.

You could try going back covered to render more of the fat out?

 

[hurricanedavid]

Those look great...:thumb:

 

[Kanco Connection]

Thanks for the info on your method/experience. Looks good!

 

[TravelingJ]

I made them twice last week. 30 minutes of prep, 6 hours of cooking. Been trying to log my cooks to get better timelines, and this was recorded the first day, and repeated the second. I'm sure there will be some variation in the future.

• .5 Hour: Start pellet cooker, go back inside and cube and rub the full pork belly (no other trimming is done)
• 1 hour: Cubes are in trays on cooker, on smoke setting.
• 3 hours: Crank smoker to 300* and let it ride. After the 3 hour mark they were tender enough to eat, not super fatty, and had a bit of a bark starting.
• 1 hour-1.5 hours: Cubes are in a pan, tossed with BBQ sauce, butter and apple butter (just my preference, you could use honey or brown sugar) Either still in the smoker, or oven at 300*. I also tend to check on them after 30-45 minutes to stir it up and get some of the rendered juices back on the top of the cubes.
• .5 hour-Back in the smoker on the Smoke setting, so a bit more smoke will firm up the bark again at a low and gentle heat.

I've been more likely to OVER cook them in the past, and had some that were pretty hard to eat. These had a nice firm crunch on the outside, but super tender inside. I think that compared to your cook, I had more fat rendered out before I put it in the pans.

 

[thirdeye]

By nature pork belly is fatty and on my first attempt I did trim some of the fattier cubes, those actually did not cook as well and were tougher. Now I like to get 3 or 4 bellies to look over and pick the one with the least fat. I do wind up tossing 5 or 6 cubes because they are mostly fat.

I cook them 5 or 6 hours either on a grate or on skewers in the drum, and use a wrapped step for about 2 hours. I use a very light sauce and apple juice when they are wrapped. Once they are tender I move to a pan with a bit more sauce and cook another 1/2 hour, sort of like finishing burnt ends. Here is my typical end result.

 

[Blowin' Smoke]

Thanks for all the info guys. My wife says they’re delicious, and that I’m my toughest critic. But I do think I will cube from the beginning and try some of yalls methods next time.


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