Pork Belly Burnt Ends

So ... it has only been fairly recent that I've been able to get Pork Belly at my local Sam's Club, which is where I buy most of my BBQ meat.

And in mid-June I finally attempted Pork Belly Burnt Ends.

They turned out delicious, but I didn't give myself enough time really, so they were not as tender as they could have been.

Saturday, I decided to try Pork Belly Burnt Ends again ... with a couple of little modifications ...

My kids are both away, so it is just me and the wife. I therefore only used half a Pork Belly.

And ... we decided to SUP on Saturday ... which meant I needed to figure out how to get them cooked around the SUP adventure (stay tuned ... I'm fairly certain a SUP post is coming).

So ... early-ish in the morning, I cut the Pork Belly in half. I vacu-sealed and froze half. The other half I cut into cube-ish pieces.

I applied some of my SheppyBrew Rub.  

I set up the smaller kettle with charcoal and hickory chips. I let the meat smoke for 2 or 3 hours (closer to 2 I think), trying to keep the temperature around 250 - 275 F.

After that time, there was pretty good color and crust on the pieces.

Then, I moved all these pork pieces into a crock-pot with all the sweet things that I did last time.

I set the crock-pot to low for 3 hours. 

While we were out on the SUP, the 3 hours came and went. The crock pot moved to "Warm".

After we got back, I let the pork just sit in the crock-pot at the Warm setting. At some point, I probed the pieces and decided to turn the crock-pot back to Low for 1.5 hours.

Then, I put the pieces in an aluminum pan back on the kettle for half an hour (I think).

Then, we ate them. Delicious. They were better than last time, but while most were nice and sweet and tender, some of the crust was a little tough. Not sure what to do about that. But, more research is necessary.

It's ok. I'm willing to experiment. Keep an eye on Sheppy's Blog: Burnt Belly and you'll see what happens next time I try these.

Keep an eye on Sheppy's Blog: Pork Belly ... and you'll see if I try something else with Pork Belly.

As always keep watching the regular SheppyBrew Channels to see what is happening with my BBQ, Beer, Biking: SheppyBrew's Facebook Page; Sheppy's Twitter Feed; SheppyBrew's Instagram Page; and SheppyBrew's Website.Of course, don't forget to visit this blog often as well!