Pork Belly Burnt Ends as Cooks treat

[petehalsted]

Smoking a bunch of meat for the River this weekend. 3 racks of Baby backs, 3 racks St. Louis Style, and a big pack of huge pork steaks.

Did 1 rack of each of the ribs today, and threw in some pork belly burnt ends as a cooks treat.

I cubed them, applied my rub.
Smoked at 225 for 3 hours
Then into a pan with 1 1/2 sticks of butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1/4 of honey.
Covered with foil and back in the smoke for 2 more hours.
They came nice and squishy with IT running from 195-205.
Drained the liquid
The applied my glazed with was
1 cup of my sweet sauce
1/4 cup blackberry jelly
1/4 honey
1/4 pineapple juice
bumped the smoker to 250.
After 15 minutes I reglazed again
Did that 1 more times. I should have pulled them after 30 min instead of going 45 minutes. The leaner ones were just starting to dry out a bit in the lean parts.

Like I said these were for cooks treat so they went on to some Hawaiian rolls and were dang yummy!! Now I got to go pull the ribs

Sorry for crappy photos, no light in room I was in.

 

[chilerelleno]

Yummy!

 

[petehalsted]

First racks done, this was my first time "foiling" in the pan instead of wrapping in foil. I got to adjust my liquid, I had a ton more liquid when I opened them then I normally have when I wrap in foil. But I definitely found the process quicker and easier.

I did a Dr Pepper / Honey glaze on these during the last hour. Definitely gave it a nice sweet layer. Just got to get the rest of my process dial in, I am getting closer, but still not as happy with my ribs as I was back when I used offset stick burner or vertical propane.

Will post more info in another thread tomorrow when I get the other 4 racks done.

 

[chilerelleno]

Ribs look good, nice color/bark.

 

[petehalsted]

Thanks Chilli!

Bark isn't as good as it could have been, I had to much liquid and lost a lot of bark, I got to adjust my liquid now that I am using a pan to foil. I capture all the juices from the pans, ran through strainer, and am letting cool to degrease. I am going to use some of the liquid in the vacuum bag so when we reheat at the river, we get an extra boost of moisture and flavor. Do this sometime if you want to see how much bark you loose in the foil, there was a lot of solids in the strainer.

Some of the color came from the glaze. 4 parts Cherry Dr. Pepper, 1 part honey. Its very thin, I brush it every 15 minutes during the 1 hour at the end when they came out of the foil. Really love the super sweet layer right before you hit the savory rub/bark. Made for a very complex flavor and as noted really gave them a deep mahogany color.

 

[SmokinAl]

Both the ribs & the burnt ends look delicious!
Nice work!
Al