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Can I change leftover roast pork into bbq pulled pork?

 
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pbone



Joined: 05 Jan 2008
Posts: 99
Location: Dutchess County, NYS

PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 8:43 pm    Post subject: Can I change leftover roast pork into bbq pulled pork? Reply with quote

I have most of a butt (big bones in there) fresh pork roast cooked to barely beyond pink. It is tasty, but I would like to turn it into bbq for sandwiches. How would I go about cooking this to the falling apart stage? What oven temp, vessel, covered or not, about how long, and when does one add the bbq sauce? I have some excellent stock if I need some for braising. thanks for any help!
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Dilbert



Joined: 19 Oct 2007
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Location: central PA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

(I deleted the dupe post - hope that's ok)

pulled pork - in general terms - is done with a long slow low cook - sometimes in and sometimes out of a liquid. with liquid, that's be a braise, without a slow roast I suppose.

the good news is the roast is not (previously) overcooked. high (internal) temps can firm up the meat to the point, might not ever go back to pulled variety.

but I'd say give it a go - I'd do it in a braise - add some acid (red wine vinegar would be my choice) or even a beer braising liquid (50:50 beer & stock/water) bot of those help break down the meat cohesion.

low simmer for about 2 hours. I do a "pulled beef" dish using top round - it gets a two hour just at a simmer, refridged over night, and another hour or more second day. never found a reason / explanation, but the overnight chilling seems to help enormously with getting it to fall apart.
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pbone



Joined: 05 Jan 2008
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Location: Dutchess County, NYS

PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:09 pm    Post subject: Can I change leftover pork roast into bbq pulled pork? Reply with quote

Thank you, Dilbert! The pork is in the oven at 210 F in a small amount of stock with a little red wine vinegar, uncovered. i'm going to check it after one hour, will probably, depending on what it looks like, turn it over and cook another hour. One further question (for future reference) - would you cover this, like in a dutch oven? I have it in a roasting pan. Before I cooked it the first time, I slapped a ginger, garlic, olive oil slur on there and marinated it overnight, so there's great flavor already.
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Dilbert



Joined: 19 Oct 2007
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Location: central PA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

cover it. keep it covered. you don't want it to "dry out" at all

well, sort of . . . at 210'F it could be safe - I'd be comfortable with that attempt on an uncooked version but 'pre-cooked' I'd go for max moisture retention. the pre-cooking may have melted away some of the "protective" fat layering. there's no such thing as "too moist" (g)

the whole deal with "pulled" is to "eliminate" connective tissue, collagen - whatever, so the individual muscle fiber bundles "fall apart"
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pbone



Joined: 05 Jan 2008
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Location: Dutchess County, NYS

PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just wrapped the whole pan in a couple layers of tin foil. Thank you again. Btw, my son lives in Foody-town Portland, Oregon, and he cooked a WHOLE pork shoulder - about 18 lbs, as I recall, with herbs and garlic in no liquid at 185 F for about 14 hours. I had my doubts, but believe it or not, the whole thing cooked PERFECTLY, and it was the most moist, succulent pork I've ever had. He cooked his uncovered, on a rack in a roasting pan. In the end, the internal temp was 185. This method produced a seriously memorable meal))))
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pbone



Joined: 05 Jan 2008
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Location: Dutchess County, NYS

PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 12:18 am    Post subject: Can I change leftover roast pork into bbq pulled pork? Reply with quote

Dear Dilbert and readers:

Thought you might be interested in how this all turned out. Two nights ago, I cooked a butt half fresh pork roast to just beyond pink. It was tasty, but daunting to look at the 3/4 roast left over. I saw 3 days of pork roast, and nothing but, staring at me. Yikes!

I like, no, I LOVE variety, so I decided to try to turn the roast into pulled pork. I cooked it in a small roasting pan with a little (1/2") of good, rich, chicken stock and a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (didn't have any red wine vinegar, as suggested by Dilbert) in a preheated oven for one hour, uncovered, at 210 F.

Then I wrapped it and the pan air tight in a couple layers of tinfoil and cooked it for another hour. I could tell on checking at that point that further cooking, even at that low heat would dry it out. So I took it out and sliced it and made a good pork sandwich with homemade celery root slaw, sweet relish, and mustard on a sesame roll, with more slaw on the side. Yum. Then I cut the rest of the meat in fairly thin slices off the weirdo blade bone going all over the place . It came off more easily than it would have done, had I not cooked it the second time.

Then I deglazed the roasting pan with a little more stock and some boiling water, just enough to deglaze the pan. Then I added about a half cup of ordinary supermarket bbq sauce, one drop of liquid smoke and a couple shakes of Tabasco for flavor and reduced the sauce til it looked right. Then I poured it over the rest of the meat, put it all in a container in the fridge. While it is not shredded or pulled, it looks like a few excellent bbq pork sandwiches. Next time, I think I would just pop it into the oven at 185 F, covered, and leave it til it gets to the pulling stage. But if I saw it drying out, I'd repeat the above. Helpful? I hope so. It provided me with 3 different meals instead of slogging for days through that pork roast promising to become really, really dull! Well, I'd have chopped it up for homemade dog food at some point! Cheers! pbone
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Dilbert



Joined: 19 Oct 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

well, perhaps didn't make the "perfectly pulled" grade but glad it turned out tasty!

the only way I've done it is by a long slow braise - almost completely submerged in liquid, barely at the simmer. the shoulder/butt cut is most often used - and from my experience, it gets "tougher" then "relaxes" - dunno the mechanics of that - it works so never had to challenge the method.

smoking is another approach but no experience with that.....
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yocona



Joined: 18 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

pbone wrote:
Btw, my son lives in Foody-town Portland, Oregon, and he cooked a WHOLE pork shoulder - about 18 lbs, as I recall, with herbs and garlic in no liquid at 185 F for about 14 hours. I had my doubts, but believe it or not, the whole thing cooked PERFECTLY, and it was the most moist, succulent pork I've ever had. He cooked his uncovered, on a rack in a roasting pan. In the end, the internal temp was 185. This method produced a seriously memorable meal))))

I use a similar method whenever I cook pork shoulder--dry rub, no liquid and a long, slow cook. The one thing I do differently is no rack. I wrap mine in aluminum foil about half way through, which traps the drippings and makes it almost like pork confit. It's the ultimate pulled pork; the meat literally falls apart. It's also easy to vary the rub ingredients depending on how you want to use the finished product.
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Michael Chu



Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 1654
Location: Austin, TX (USA)

PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dilbert wrote:
the only way I've done it is by a long slow braise - almost completely submerged in liquid, barely at the simmer. the shoulder/butt cut is most often used - and from my experience, it gets "tougher" then "relaxes" - dunno the mechanics of that - it works so never had to challenge the method.

What is happening is due to how collagen denatures and the particular collagen construct. Collagen begins to denature (very slowly) at around 120F but rapidly denatures at higher temperatures (it's a gradual range, but let's say 170F and higher). There is collagen between each individual muscle fiber and around the muscle fiber bundles sort of in a sheath like configuration. When this collagen denatures, the protein uncoils and forms bonds with nearby collagen and causes the sheaths to tighten which squeezes out the water in the muscle fiber resulting in tough meat. (This is why we don't cook a filet mignon until it's well done.) As more and more collagen denatures, the collagen around the muscle fibers hydrolyze into gelatin which we perceive as juiciness and that's the "relaxation" you are referring to. Heated long enough, you can even convert the collagen that sheaths the entire muscle (often referred to as silverskin or, when in a dense formation, gristle) into delicious gooey juiciness.
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pbone



Joined: 05 Jan 2008
Posts: 99
Location: Dutchess County, NYS

PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 8:14 am    Post subject: to Yokona Reply with quote

to Yokona -
Actually, after I posted my foody son's method in Portland, I remembered that he didn't put the monster shoulder on a rack. He put it on a bed of thinly sliced onions and a sliced carrot ? and maybe some garlic and stuff. And he did use a dry rub for about a day prior to cooking. He may have started it out somewhat hotter, like 400 F for a half hour, then right down to 185 F for the remaining 17 or so hours! The whole thing was somewhere between pulled texture and carveable...I'd call it very close to falling off the bone. Your method of sealing it up in foil sounds brilliant! This is a great discussion!)))
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pbone



Joined: 05 Jan 2008
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Location: Dutchess County, NYS

PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 8:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

To Michael Chu (presumed newlywed! Auguri!) -

Oh, yes! I have frequently pulled that "silverskin" off before cooking some kinds of roasts, and certainly I remove it from beef liver steaks if I make fegato alla Veneziana or something, but I have eaten it, and gristle as well, that, properly slow-cooked. have turned into that delicious goo material you describe!

So, to recap, the way you get that above described fall off the bone juiciness is to cook it long and slow, maybe with no liquid, and wrapping it in aluminum foil about halfway through the cooking time. In a roasting pan without a cover, as opposed to a dutch oven, covered? As Dilbert suggested - what he is describing is braising, whereas the dry/uncovered method would be classified as slow cooking or slow roasting. Right?

I once consulted that marvelous guy from MeatHenge (what has become of him - I miss him!) about slow cooking country ribs in the oven, and he said not to cover them. He put slices of lemon on them. That worked. I don't recall the details just now.
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Auspicious



Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 66
Location: on the boat, Annapolis, MD

PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do a lot of pork on yacht deliveries. That means very small cooking space, unknown utensils, unknown cookware, and not much depth to the pantry beyond what I bring aboard. Bear that in mind when considering my approach.

I'll often make a pork loin roast the first night offshore. Roasted at medium heat (many boats don't have a calibrated thermostat on the oven) covered in foil.

Next day leftovers are sliced for sandwiches. After lunch I shred the remaining loin with a couple of forks (once with a screwdriver and a knife when we were really short on flatware). The shreds go in a container with commercial BBQ sauce, some cider vinegar, and whatever else looks like it makes since. That sits in the refrigerator over night (if there is a refrigerator - sometimes it sits in the bilge where it is cool, or in a cooler with thawing protein for later meals). The next day it goes on to simmer for a couple of hours before lunch and becomes a very reasonable approximation of BBQ sandwiches.

Sometimes you have to rise above the limitations of the resources you have in hand.

sail fast and eat well, dave
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yocona



Joined: 18 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:18 am    Post subject: Re: to Yokona Reply with quote

pbone wrote:
to Yokona -
Actually, after I posted my foody son's method in Portland, I remembered that he didn't put the monster shoulder on a rack. He put it on a bed of thinly sliced onions and a sliced carrot ? and maybe some garlic and stuff. And he did use a dry rub for about a day prior to cooking. He may have started it out somewhat hotter, like 400 F for a half hour, then right down to 185 F for the remaining 17 or so hours! The whole thing was somewhere between pulled texture and carveable...I'd call it very close to falling off the bone. Your method of sealing it up in foil sounds brilliant! This is a great discussion!)))

Same here; I always put the rub on the day before. I store the butt wrapped in saran. I do 275 F for about eight hours--but that's for a half shoulder, usually in the five-pound range. (It's just me and a five-year old, we can eat off this for nearly a week.) I start with the fat side down, unwrapped but with sheets of foil in place underneath so none of the drippings get lost. In the oven for 90 minutes, flip the butt over and back in the oven for another 90 minutes. Enclose the butt in the foil (don't flip, you want the fatty side to remain on top) and return to oven for four to five hours. Let it rest in the foil for an hour after you remove it from the oven.
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pbone



Joined: 05 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yokona - Your method is a little, but significantly, different from my son's. 220 F is boiling point, and what I was skeptical about is that my son cooked the thing at 185 F - below boiling - for all those hours. I didn't think it would even cook, only just warm up! The higher heat to begin with...I can't remember the details, but I don't think it was longer than a half hour at higher heat. But the whole thing was absolutely perfecto.

If you and your son get tired of the roast before it is gone, you can try the second and third versions of the same meal like the above dude on the yacht! Variety was what I was aiming for, but I was afraid I'd dry the whole thing out. Didn't happen, and I did by instinct what yacht-dude did, but with a slightly better bbq sauce. As he notes, it was not pulled pork, but a passable and quite tasty imitation as a sandwich or over rice, with a refreshing slaw as an accompaniment.
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Thorbjoern



Joined: 16 Apr 2012
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:28 am    Post subject: Pork Heaven Reply with quote

I think its incredible how passionate you are about you're food its really inspiring im just starting to cook now and, im hungry after reading this so ill go and make some lunch Smile.
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