Pork Belly cook time question

[Sitty89]

Yesterday I smoked some pork belly in my new Pit Boss Austin XL. I set the temp to 200 because I wanted a longer smoke. I verified that the temp was at or near 200 for the entire time. The problem is, it reached 150 in an hour and a half! I was hoping for at least. 3 hour smoke.

One thing that I am wondering would be a factor is the type of cure. This belly had a dry cure. Could the dry cure pulling all the moisture out have sped up the cook time? I am doing the same amount but in a wet cure tomorrow. Hoping to be able to get way more smoke on this one.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[tallbm]

Hi there and welcome!
Were you shooting for 150F Internal Temp (IT)?

Other than making bacon I haven't cooked more then about 10 pounds of pork belly and I always cooked it until it was tender.
Pork belly is basically just boneless pork ribs with the skin and fat added to one side so the meat behaves very much like pork ribs.
Pork ribs are always cooked to an IT like 195-200F so they are tender and not tough.

If you left the pork belly in the smoker and cooked it to 195F IT I bet money they would have taken like 5 hours or more to hit 195F.

I hope this info helps :)

 

[Sitty89]

Thanks for the welcome! Yes, I was shooting for 150 per several recommendations from various sources.

 

[tallbm]

Thanks for the welcome! Yes, I was shooting for 150 per several recommendations from various sources.

Ok then yeah that got up a little quick for you then.
An alternative approach would be to buy an A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker (AMNPS) tube and cold smoke for an hour and then fire up the pellet smoker to cook and smoke the rest of the way.

 

[bregent]

Could the dry cure pulling all the moisture out have sped up the cook time?

No, salt initially pulls out some moisture but most is eventually reabsorbed. Reaching 150F in 3 hours @ 200F sounds about right. Pork belly is thin and heats up fast. Doesn't the pit run any lower than that? Cold smoking with a tube or tray is a good option if is doesn't.

 

[Sitty89]

I haven’t tried letting it run at the smoke setting which is lower than 200. But I still don’t understand why it would get up to temp so quickly.

 

[Sitty89]

The only other thing I can think of is the cure shrunk the thickness of the belly. It ended up being maybe an inch and a quarter thick.

 

[WaterRat]

The temp profile doesn't seem out of whack to me. When I do say a 1.5-2" thick London broil @225°F I'm at ~120°F in about an hour on my pellet smoker. You need to lower your temp, use the "smoke" setting then play with the "P" setting to get to your desired smoker temp. I used that method to make tasso a while back and it turned out quite well.

 

[Sitty89]

The temp profile doesn't seem out of whack to me. When I do say a 1.5-2" thick London broil @225°F I'm at ~120°F in about an hour on my pellet smoker. You need to lower your temp, use the "smoke" setting then play with the "P" setting to get to your desired smoker temp. I used that method to make tasso a while back and it turned out quite well.

Thank you for that! That’s exactly the info I needed. Thinking of cold smoking another belly for an hour before I go to the smoker. Hoping that helps some. Thanks again!