FunkedOut
New member
Usually, I only eat belly when cooking a whole hog, but it's my favorite part of the beast, so once or twice, I've spoiled myself.
I've always cooked whole hog in a pit or caja china (lacajachina.com), and bellies always in the oven. Bottom line, always high heat. This will be my first slow and low belly.
Got 3 pounds worth of pork belly from the local meat market, just to try it on the smoker. This was a skin-on belly. I love crisping up the skin to eat cracklings or chicharrones or pork rinds or whatever you want to call them, but again, that's a high heat deal.
So I decided to skin this belly, cut the skin into strips for deep frying right before serving the belly. A little salt, black pepper and smoked habanero pepper powder and into a bag they go until dinner time.
Now to focus on the belly...
I used 3 tablespoons of tender quick and rubbed it in real good, wrapped in plastic tightly and put back in the fridge for 1 hour.
Washed it off real good and put in a brine of guava nectar and salt. The nectar has more than enough sugar, and I subtracted the 3 tablespoons of tender quick I had used earlier from the total amount of salt I normally use in a brine (1 gallon of water, 1 cup of salt, 1 cup of sugar). I let this sit 12 hours in a plastic bag.
Pulled he belly out, pat it dry, no rinse, and coated it with black pepper, garlic salt, onion powder, oregano and a bit of paprika with a real light dust of cayenne. Immediately into the smoker loaded with pecan chips and cherry chunks.
Here's the plan:
Cold belly, cold smoker
225F until IT of 140F
200F until IT of 160F
Pull the belly out to rest a bit while I:
Glaze with a gauva BBQ sauce/glaze that I haven't invented yet
Get the smoker up to 300F
Put the belly back in for 30min or so.
Serve topped with fresh fried rinds along side rice and black beans.
I'll get some pics up later.
I've always cooked whole hog in a pit or caja china (lacajachina.com), and bellies always in the oven. Bottom line, always high heat. This will be my first slow and low belly.
Got 3 pounds worth of pork belly from the local meat market, just to try it on the smoker. This was a skin-on belly. I love crisping up the skin to eat cracklings or chicharrones or pork rinds or whatever you want to call them, but again, that's a high heat deal.
So I decided to skin this belly, cut the skin into strips for deep frying right before serving the belly. A little salt, black pepper and smoked habanero pepper powder and into a bag they go until dinner time.
Now to focus on the belly...
I used 3 tablespoons of tender quick and rubbed it in real good, wrapped in plastic tightly and put back in the fridge for 1 hour.
Washed it off real good and put in a brine of guava nectar and salt. The nectar has more than enough sugar, and I subtracted the 3 tablespoons of tender quick I had used earlier from the total amount of salt I normally use in a brine (1 gallon of water, 1 cup of salt, 1 cup of sugar). I let this sit 12 hours in a plastic bag.
Pulled he belly out, pat it dry, no rinse, and coated it with black pepper, garlic salt, onion powder, oregano and a bit of paprika with a real light dust of cayenne. Immediately into the smoker loaded with pecan chips and cherry chunks.
Here's the plan:
Cold belly, cold smoker
225F until IT of 140F
200F until IT of 160F
Pull the belly out to rest a bit while I:
Glaze with a gauva BBQ sauce/glaze that I haven't invented yet
Get the smoker up to 300F
Put the belly back in for 30min or so.
Serve topped with fresh fried rinds along side rice and black beans.
I'll get some pics up later.
