Brined Pulled Pork from Good Eats

[Ender1]

Tried this recipe. Loved it.

Get one Boston Pork Butt from the supermarket. Untrimmed (nice layer of fat on top).

Take it home. Get a small cooler (about big enough for the butt to get lodged in), a decent scale, a coffee grinder (new and unused)

Take the cooler and fill with the following measured ingredients. Place cooler on scale, tare out, and add individually the following:

8 oz molasses (3/4 cup)
4 pints (pint = 1 lb) or 64 (4 lbs) oz water
12 oz pickling salt

Mix. Important to use pickling salt because nothing else will dissolve in cold water. Tested on fine salt from Mortons. Add butt and place a 1-2 gallon ziplock bag full of ice on top of it and close. Seal and store for 12 hours. If you have a large refrigerator, you're more than welcome to use that to brine.

Then, when it's ready to come out and go on the smoke, pat dry and coat in dry rub.

Grind up in coffee grinder (that hasn't been used to grind coffee) whole cumin, coriander, and fennel. You don't have to do this, of course, but you will get a much more robust seasoning when the oils have just been released. 1 tsp each. Add 1 tbsp of paprika, onion powder, and chili powder and grind/mix. Liberally sprinkle on butt (I use a hold container purchased at a specialty kitchen shop to apply. Basically a can with a handle and holes in the top). Let butt come to room temperature before smoking.

Put on hickory smoke for app 12 hours. Cook to tenderness. When pork falls away with fork, remove. Wrap in foil for an hour or a half hour if you're impatient to eat. Separate with fork.

 

[bigwheel]

Sounds yummy. Thanks for sharing.

 

[bbquzz]

Got any pictures?

 

[Ender1]

 

[bbquzz]

I'm not an old timer at BBQ, but have followed this board for several years and have never heard of brined butt. Did it have more moisture than un-brined? Was the butt you cooked one that was already enhanced? I'll be interested to see what some of the others say about this.

 

[bigwheel]

Never tried it cept for a curing brine on some buckboard bacon one time. Most of the butts we get around here are already purty well pumped. Will say I have been doing my Jonas Bros. hot water brine on pork loin steaks and chops here lately and it makes them way better than them which aint had the treatment. If it would improve the butt in similar fashion believe it would be a good plan to brine. Sure them loins was pumped too.

 

[Nick Prochilo]

Butts have so much fat I can't see the reason for brining!

 

[bigwheel]

Will agree butts got plenty of fat. I always trim off the fat cap and it still has plenty. Not sure which one of them knot head Food TV folks advocate leaving it on there. Prob the same one who said to bring a butt up to 160 for pushed pork. Betcha it be a dumb Portugese yankee from Falls River Mass. You should taste his beer brine for chicken recipe sometime. It would gag a gut wagon maggot. Nearly as bad as his commercial Rib Rub. The boy has an Oregano fetish. Now if Alton Brown said to do it..I would just try to help him get his thinking straight on this issue.

 

[3 Olives]

I'm glad you liked it. What exactly does it do to the butt do improve it?

 

[bigwheel]

Well for example and leaving out the science for a bit which involves some form of osmosis. Alton had a food science on one time to explain it all and it dont work like most folks thinks it work..It tends to make the meat juicier and whutever flavor is in the brine water will largely be translated into the meat. Depends on the the particular spice temp of the brine barometric pressure etc. Person could think of it as a gentle injection which gets into every nook and cranny of the meat if you want it there. I overdid the Oregano on chicken one time and it come out tasting like a pepperoni pizzer all the way to the bone. Any kind of salt works just fine for a brine. The imaginary prohibition against table salt is that the iodine messes something up and gives an odd flavor. Now think it would be a good plan to use pickling salt in canning applications such as with pickles etc. which is claimed the iodine will give them a funky color.

 

[john pen]

I brine my turkeys before smoking but have not smoked an unbrined turkey so I have nothing to compare it to so I guess even mentioning it here was a waste of bandwidth.

 

[bigwheel]

Well as they taught us in writing 101 if something aint worth mentioning...might as well not mention it Saves ink on the printers. Whut is band width? Thanks.