French Pork Roast

Brining would be a necessity,no matter what.It has no internal fat to break down,so doesn't lend itself to lo/slo.

Most folks would hot cook it around 335º.

Like Tom says, If you brine them, they turn out nicely.

I was first thinking about smoking at 300F in my CS-025, Brining looks interesting too. How would I make it into esentially 'smoked pork chops' ? Do you have to brine for a week or more with cure? The smoked pork chops I get in the store look like ham. I'd like to duplicate that.

Cut the loin roast into pork chops first then brine. Smokin suggests 12-24 hrs for pork chops in Brining 101.

Smoking at 300º would pretty well knock out any smoke.The finished product you are looking for requires more of a process than just cooking,as suggested.

After reading a bit about making ham I figure the same approach to make a pork roast the same way might work. It would be basically smoked pork chops or 'ham pork chops'. Not sure of the salt levels but I think it might work. Comments? not sure if the Prague is even needed however.

Cure Ingredients (1 gallon brine)
- 1 gallon water
- 1.5 cups salt
- 1.5 cups brown sugar and/or honey
- 1/4 cup Prague powder #1
- 2-3 gloves garlic
- spices?
Bring to boil and cool to 38F
Inject 1 cup per 5 lbs meat into Loin
Put Loin in brine for 2-3 days and leave at 38 F
Rinse / scrub well

Smoke at 240F with Apple/Hickory mix, at 140 glaze
Add glaze
1/4 cup mustard
1/4 cup honey
1/8 cup orange Juice
spices?
Cook until a target temp of 150- 155F is reached

sounds like you might be describing a rack of pork

http://forum.cookshack.com/eve...872981996#3872981996

Gosh. Smokin knows a lot more about brining than I do, but I would think injecting with a brine would make the roast very, very salty. Brine uses a high salt content to transfer moisture and seasonings into the roast by osmosis. When done brining, we thoroughly rinse the brine off the roast to get rid of the salt. How would you rinse the salt after you inject?

My recommendation is brine with a brine solution or inject with a mixture made for injection, not both. If you still would like to brine and inject, google a pork injection recipe and use it. Then use your brine recipe. Both procedures add moisture to the roast and to do them both seems like duplication to me.

My goal is to make it 'hammy' and not really a roasted pork. If you ever bought smoked pork chops in a store they are actually 'ham' , pink in color and a bit salty. I want to reproduct this. The recipe I listed I found on a blog about brining a ham, except for the amount of time to brine (they brined 10 days for a 20# ham). I'm thinking the procedure could be followed for the French roast. I'll let you know how it turns out. Can't learn without experimenting i guess...

The smoked chops at my local Amish butcher are smoky but not hammy

it looks like you're basically proposing a Canadian Bacon style brine, which is often done with pork loin. You're just modifying the 'spices'. The Prague amount looks a bit out of wack as it it usually done by meat weight and 1/4 cup seem very excessive. Only two days of brining most likely won't fully penetrate to the center; you can always cut and test to see how the penetration is going.

After reading (and re-reading) the ham brine recipe and dba1954's conversion of it for the rack of pork, I had a couple thoughts....

If you really want a "hammy" effect you'll definitely need to use the PP#1.

Like TN Q, i thought the amount of PP#1 called for (1/4 cup) was very excessive. Then I realized it was for a brine, and not a dry cure. 1/4 cup = 12 tsp. = 4 tbs. The rule of thumb I follow is 6 tbs of PP#1 per gallon of water, so that seems OK.

The brine time for the 20 lb. ham (10 days), and the conversion proposed for the roast (2-3 days)is way out of whack, and essentially pointless. The rule of thumb for a cut such as the roast would be 3 days per lb, or in this case, 18 days.

Personally, if it were me, I'd drop the idea of the brine altogether, and go with a dry cure using 1 tsp of PP#1 per 5 lbs. of meat, and cure it for 12 days.

I appreciate all the good info. I going to try a wet brine this time, if it turns out bad i'll take my wife out for dinner I'll start it this afternoon and see how it looks on Sunday (4 days). The injecting should help cut the brine time down I hope. If it's not ready I can always give it another couple of days or even brine till the following weekend if I have to.

Here is the orignal link I was working off.

http://www.dizzypigbbq.com/recipesHam.html

this is either going to be real good or real bad ... I have a gadget that is sold as a meat tenderizer with 60 small knifes/spikes 1/4" apart about 2" long that you push into the meat to make holes. To aid in the brining I used it on the pork roast. When I went to inject it came gushing out of the holes I made with it so I think the brine has a good avenue to get good penetration. Probably made 500+ holes. For a 6 lb roast this might be the ideal way to expedite brining. hopefully this doesn't introduce other issues like loss of moisture when I smoke.

dba,

Anytime you poke a holw into a piece of meat it offers a location for moisture to be released. And 500, just that much more.

I have bought and cooked meat around here that has been treated that way. They refer to it as minute steak. (beef) And it will cook very quickly. I have also seen this done to slices of pork loin. Makes they Very dry.

I have done several plain ole whole pork loins for scout meals. I started them at 250 and then took it to 275 after the first hour.

RandyE

quote:

Originally posted by dba1954:
I have a gadget that is sold as a meat tenderizer with 60 small knifes/spikes 1/4" apart about 2" long that you push into the meat to make holes. To aid in the brining I used it on the pork roast. When I went to inject it came gushing out

The needling device is a Jicard. It's used to help tenderize. When combined with a brine, it allows more penetration of the brine into the meat in a shorter amount of time. If you Jicard, injecting becomes redundant. Choose one or the other. If you decide to inject, wrap your meat with plastic to prevent the injection liquid from squirting back out.

It turned out better then expected. After a 3 day brine, Smoked with 2 oz apple at 225F and pulled at 145. Foiled and let set for 2 hours and then sliced into 20 chops. Removed the boned for soups. Excellent taste, maybe a little longer for the brine but very moist. I'll do this again....

looks like it turned out nice and moist. Congrats on your success.

Way to go. Looks delicious.

thanks, it was quite good but when I make another one i'd probably use 1/2 the salt, the end peices (outer 1/2") were too salty. If I had brined it longer it might not have turned out as good. I also skipped the glaze and went with a dry rub, that worked out real good .... cooking with a CS is a dream compared to my gas water smoker ! it's hard to srew up a smoke with a CS.

Your recipe looked like a lot of salt especially with the injection so it's good you made some adjustments. I'm sure your next attempt will be spot on.