Advice on best way to cook some pork

Post your recipe requests and cooking questions in this setion. Not for general discussions.
Post Reply
chaosdog
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 11:53 am

Advice on best way to cook some pork

Post by chaosdog »

Hi. New member although I've been lurking for a while.

I've always had lots of BBQs but recently bought one of the new Kamado Joes (Christmas present to myself haha) which has significantly increased my BBQing options and rekindled my interest in BBQing. I still have a midsize Weber Q, a Weber charcoal kettle and a large Weber flat top having recently retired my 28 yo Weber Genesis. I've had a fair old crack at a few things in the 3 weeks that I've had it and am overall pretty confident in the operation of it. I've done 3 pizza nights, a low and slow lamb shoulder, a large chicken on a liquid stand and for Christmas I did a huge 9 rib Pork Loin roast and a Turkey, both of which were just great. I'm planning a big Chinese style skewer char grill for Monday night using both the Kamado and the Weber charcoal.

The reason for posting is that I'm trying to clear out an old chest freezer - we have 3 other upright freezers and I'd really like to turn this other one off soon. From the same very large pig that the roast came off, I have the 2 back legs (which are way too big to put in the uprights) and I have 3 portions of Neck fillet, each around 2 kg. I also have some belly off this pig in one of the other freezers. None of this has any skin on it (sadly) as the pig was too large to fit in the scalding trough so he was skinned. (Dressed carcass without skin and head was still a shade over 200 kg!).

This was a farmed pig and he was plenty fat - my brother feeds them a lot of fruit and corn and whey which means they pack on the fat. They eat grain and other stuff as well but they are essentially waste disposal units on his fruit and veg farm. This pork has been in the freezer over 2 years but is still cooking and tasting beautiful. The only reason that we haven't eaten it all is because the cuts are so large. They were all packaged very thoroughly so they are in pretty good nick.

I intended to use them in sausages when I put them in the freezer but haven't had a chance to make sausages for a long time as I have a 3 year old daughter and time for smallgoods manufacturing seems non existent (as is the home brewing - luckily I still have lots of snags in the freezer and beer in the kegs although I'm gradually emptying those.

So...after that long winded explanation, I'm after some ideas on that to do with these enormous legs (they may not even fit on the Joe without cutting them in half) and the necks. I thought the necks might be ok for pulled pork but am concerned that they might be too small for low and slow - although there's plenty of fat on them so they won't dry out I guess.

If they are too small, I guess I can use them as roasts or slice for pork scotch fillets. The legs I guess won't do the job for pulled pork? Am I best just to roast them or maybe ham cure and roast?

Any ideas or advice gratefully received.
12x7
Posts: 772
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:32 pm

Re: Some advice on pork please

Post by 12x7 »

That's one big pig!

The good news with the Kamado is that it cooks with lots of moisture. This is also bad news if you like to have crackling on the pork as it becomes a bit of an hit and miss at times to do it easily.

I assume you have a Kamado Joe Classic?

You can get pulled pork in a few hours of roasting, and guaranteed for 10 hours or more.

2kg cut is fine for low and slow. Tent the meat and baste. You can get some intense flavour that way. (no crackle though)

I would have cook several 2KG chunks with the extender on.

I would have 1x 2kg for immediate eating and pulled the rest and vac seal and put in the fridge to take out and warmed up as needed for a quick meal.

If you decide to cut off the rind and cook separately there are lots of good tasting options. eg make your own pork crackling chips. eg slip up and put them in an air fryer.
Post Reply