Looks amazing, Sean! Is this just slow roasted or is there some smokey magic going on too?
There is definitely some smokey magic happening. Here is how I made these.
Cut up a pork belly into ~1" cubes. Apply a liberal amount of dry rub to cover all the surfaces. Then on the smoker at 275 for about 2 1/2 hours. I used apple for this round but any fruit wood would work well.
Transfer the cubes to an aluminum pan.
cover the cubes with:
~1/2 - 3/4 C brown sugar
1 stick of butter chopped up
drizzle with honey.
Cover the pan and put back on the smoker for another 90 minutes.
You will want to drain off the liquid at this point.
In a separate bowl mix:
1 C bbq sauce
~1/2 C apple juice
~ 1/2 C apple jelly
~1-2 T franks hot sauce
Pour the glaze over the drained cubes, cover and put back on the smoker for another 10 minutes or so.
The fat parts just melt in your mouth and the meaty parts are little sweet nuggets of jerky. Well worth the effort.
Very nice, Sean. Thanks for sharing the recipe and technique. It's the brown sugar and honey at 275 that produces the char. You won't get a deep bark from only 2 1/2 hours, but the sugar will work nicely. I like the addition of just a hint of heat from the hot sauce, but not enough that it'll knock my daughter over just by looking at it.
Thanks again. You've made me want to fire up mine. It's still pretty new, so it doesn't have the years of seasoning inside, but it sure does look nice.
I replaced my old one as it literally fell apart. The ring in the bottom to hold the burner fell on the ground. Amazingly when I put it at the curb somebody picked it up within a few minutes. Not sure what they would do with it since there is nowhere near enough material to weld it or anything.
As for spice level both my boys gobbled this stuff down (ages 9 and 12). And they both do not even pretend to like anything spicy. Let me know how this turns out for you if you try it.
Any suggestions for my next experiment?
I had the Smoky Mountain out in the middle of last month on the first dry Saturday we'd had. Unfortunately it was -4 C and there was a gusty wind so getting any consistent temperature was tricky. As Mrs B pointed out, many of the states where smoking is big can have daytime temperatures nearly halfway to smoking heat before any charcoal is lit, so I was fighting with one hand behind my back in those conditions. On the plus side, the Welsh Black brisket I had was nice and fatty and the closest thing I've seen to American cut brisket and I got some good results. I also had a major success at the first attempt with my Jack Daniel's sauce. I'm hoping to get the smoker out a lot more this year but it all depends on the weather.
On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
—Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
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