Slow Roast Pork Butt
 

I'm making roast pork tomorrow.
We call it shoulder but Merkin sites I've been to call it butt. Even though it's not :p

I have contradictory advice.
I want to make it Merkin style. In that I want to be able to pull it apart with a fork. British style roast pork is sliced - I don't want that. I want something totally different to anything they've eaten before and I want it melt-in-the-mouth. And yes, Americans do that best.

Now the general advice is to cook for 8 hours, allowing the fat to seep into the meat and the collagen to break down. Fine. But I've read that it's not possible to overcook it, you can leave it in as long as you want. And also that you can over-cook it and it will go tough and leathery. And one of the sites suggested that if you have a fan oven you need to turn the fan off. Well, we do have a fan oven, and I can't turn the fan off.

Also, some of the recipes I've read (I was going for a hybrid of my own making) say to cover it, but other forums suggest this traps condensation, so you end up steaming rather than roasting. I'm also torn between cooking in liquid (various ideas inc lemon juice, wine, water) and not. I think the liquid and the foil are not compatible.

I come to you for help.
Any advice?

Do you have a slow cooker (aka Crockpot) in your house SG? If so, put it in there and leave it forever (at least eight hours). I'd put some flavoured liquid in the bottom (not much) and balance the pig part on some lumps of vegetable (carrot, for example).

You're doing this entirely in the oven?
The standard merkin pulled pork recipes are gonna be for a bbq or smoker....

Have you considered brining? That would help it not be dry.

This recipe uses a brine and an oven.

I have no slow cooker, I'm afraid.

And Jinx - it's probably the way I've been searching, but every recipe I've seen has been oven only. Oh, except for The River Cafe one (English) which was in a pot. Brining is a step too far for me, sorry.

ETA - that recipe does seem to fit the pattern though. Plan is to whack the oven up as high as it will go. Rub salt into the scores. Put in the pork, and immediately reset the oven to 100 degrees (C). Leave for 8 hours. If necessary put the heat back up to crisp the crackling (it will have to go back up to roast the potatoes anyway). I'm thinking 30 mins uncovered at the start, then 30 mins uncovered at the end. And trust the fat to preserve the moisture.

Dutch oven would do as well.

Nope. Also not got.

Hey SG

It's possible to overcook it, but you might die of old age first....

Look, you can easily do this in the oven. Looks like your recipe will do ok, one **KEY** part missing is that you need moist heat in the oven. You MUST have a pan of water in the oven as you're cooking the pork. I put the pork in a roasting pan, and I use my turkey rack to keep it up off the bottom and I keep an inch or so of water in the bottom. I also cover it with foil. I like to start with a room temperature piece of meat when I put it on the smoker, I reckon this would be less crucial in the oven where you can control the temperature more easily. How big is the cut of meat? I have done this with large cuts, around 15-20 pounds. A smaller cut would be easier to cook, but makes the water much more important.

You're exactly right when you say you are trying to melt the collagen in the fibers of the meat...that makes it tender and moist. Don't let it run dry. Don't take it out early. When you're doing it right it will literally fall apart in your hands. Good luck.

BigV's right, it's all about the moisture. A foil tent won't keep moisture trapped inside as well as a dutch oven (lidded cast iron pot, just to be sure I'm not using words you use differently,) but it's better than nothing. With a dutch oven, you wouldn't need to add water, with a foil tent you will. The top will still get nice and roasty, it won't appear to have been steamed. See here for how I do it (but I do use a dutch oven.)

I always thought that a dutch oven was when you farted in bed and then pulled the covers over your wife's head.

As long as you have cast iron sheets, and prefer your wife well-done.

I knew I was in the right place for advice :yum:

My joint is >2kg, which translates to about 4lbs
15-20lbs! Argh! Is that a whole pig?! I'm only cooking for five.

I have a lidded roasting pan. I thought a Dutch Oven was a terracotta thing for some reason, so thanks for the elucidation. I'm going to use that instead of the tray I had originally intended.

A quick note to say I'm off right now, but any further advice needs to happen before 09.00 GMT (BST) tomorrow.
My maths is too poor to work it out for you!
But if you care about me - please do! - you'll post before then.

Thanks for the help so far. Kisses and all that.

The lid needs to really be nice and heavy so it's borderline airtight. If it's not, you can hedge your bets by placing a separate pan of water (1-2 inches deep) on the lower shelf in the oven, so the air outside the lidded container will be nice and moist too, just in case.

Logged back in specifically to see if I had any further advice :)

Good plan Batman.
Both the dish and lid are quite heavy, but having looked up a Dutch Oven... they're not it. Am loving the pan of water idea. Will do covered roasting tin & water.

I promise pics.

You'll still need foil off, hot temperature finish for the crackling ...

I don't know if this is too late. I suspect maybe by an hour or two, but I thought I'd pop my two cents worth in anyway.

When I do a roast pork (any cut) I preheat my oven to very hot, and put the pork in (which I've oiled and salted) when it's at room temp (around 23 degrees) on a rack over a tray of water. I leave it at that temp for about 10 to 15 mins just till it seals the outside of the pork but doesn't start cooking on the inside. Then I turn the oven right down to close to low and cook it for hours. I end up with perfect fall off the bone pork when I do it this way.

Also, if I still want crackling, after I take it out of the oven, I simply cut the skin off, put it on a tray on some baking paper and pop it under the grill on high heat till it's done. That way, you have the best of both worlds.

With regard to the brining process. Over here, you can buy what's called 'pickled pork' which is pork which has been brined. It is a good idea for roasting, but I find it's very difficult to get crackling from it as the skin also starts to break down from the salt.

Ali - I think SG will see that tomorrow morning over here :)

Pig now in oven.
I've taken almost everyone's advice in one way or another - so if it all goes to hell I'll have to accept all of the blame for not taking anyone's advice completely!

It's in a covered roasting tin, with a pan of water on a lower shelf.
It had 30 minutes uncovered on high, covered now with the temp down to 100.

Mum has already poked her nose in - I wonder how many more times?

- You won't get that in there [the tin and the lid - she took a shelf out for me, but I had already measured it before turning the oven on and it would have fit]
- Are you starting it now?
- You're not cooking it at that heat are you?
- Why have you got the lid out - I thought you were using it, that's why I took the shelf out.
- I can see the fat will be spattered all over the oven. I'll have to clean it when you're done. That's why I never cook pork.

Sigh.

Hmmmmmm.
Checked on it just now. It's not looking anywhere near fork-pullable.
I tell myself that this is still an hour off being ready. And after all a cake which is an hour off is still in the cupboard/ fridge!

But I am concerned. I have taken some flak today regarding this cooking method.
Sometimes you need to stick to your guns and end up covered in glory, and sometimes you need to be a surrender monkey and and eat what you're given.

Positive thoughts PLEASE!

Yikes! Kosher salt on a pork butt. A culinary oxymoron.

Put the potatoes in.
Checked the meat again.
I think I'm looking at a fail :(

Religious, not culinary. And religion should have the decency to leave good food out of its ridiculousness.

Fail how SG?

Hey Sundae Girl

Positive thoughts:

Your pork will taste fine, regardless of the pull-apart texture.

I don't know how yours *did* turn out, but I'll tell you I've made many of these, and they keep getting better and better. Which also means that the ones at the beginning were definitely not tender like this. This is a hard recipe to master, at least it has been for me. Cooking low and slow (really low, 100C, and really slow, half a day or more) is a huge departure from most other kitchen projects. Seriously, this is a big step.

Some, no, a lot of the end result depends on the cut of meat as well. I know it's called butt, but it's the shoulder, as you already pointed out. The moistness of the meat comes not from the muscle but from the other parts, like the connective tissue and the fat. Usually these parts of a cut of meat are considered undesirable, at least visually, when you're imagining it while at the meat counter. My point is, I hope you got a fatty piece with lots of little muscles, as opposed to some lovely pink meat with a minimum of non-muscle, like a pork loin (also difficult to do well, but for other reasons).

I also wondered about the size of your butt. (hehehe....) Four pounds? That's tiny. I don't know how that will come out... For example, the one I made most recently, I posted in a different thread, I measured it. Eighteen and a half pounds of pork went in (no bones) and I netted only eleven and a half pounds of pulled pork. I lost about a third of the mass, as fat that melted out, and maybe some water. I just wonder what a four pound cut of meat that could lose a third of its weight in fat would look like. I think it would look practically like a hunk of salt pork. Perhaps you got a piece that was just too lean. That would make this project much much harder to pull off (no pun intended).

I have no (polite) positive advice for your problem of the oversupply of cooks in the kitchen. I'd love to hear how it all turned out though!

Good luck.

Sorry it isn't working out. You may need a better set up for pulled pork.

Here is a really simple (and quite awesome) recipe for roast beef instead of pork that you may want to try.

Leave roast (any size) out at room temperature for over 1/2 hour.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Put roast on rack in pan in oven.
Cook 6 minutes per pound.
Turn off the oven.
Leave the roast in the oven for a minimum of 2 hours. DO NOT PEEK!
Roast will be well-done on the outside and pink on the inside.

It was okay.
But given that I had to explain the cooking method about 5 times, okay wasn't really good enough.

All commented on how moist it was, and how enjoyable, but I knew it could have been better, so I was disappointed. Yes, I was vindicated in that the 8 hour cooking time did not dry the meat out - quite the reverse - but it's something I need to work on.

Not quite a fail - and the potatoes were lovely! - but not a meal people will still be talking about at Christmas. Which was the [ridiculously high] standard I set myself.

V, we just cook smaller joints of meat in this country I think!
My shoulder had a good layer of fat on it, got great crackling off the top with white fat still left underneath. My guess would be that it needed an hour or so more to really break down. Just under 2kg was enough for four of us (including second helpings!) with enough left over for Grandad's sandwich tomorrow. And a bit more too.

Is that two hours total, or two hours after turning off the oven?

Two hours after turning off the oven.

This thread has inspired me to roast a cut of beef tonight. I'm going to use a piece of silverside which is what we call corned beef.

Usually I boil it, but I think a roast might be nice tonight.

What we call corned beef comes in a tin (aka bull beeef?).
When we have roast beef it's either silverside or topside. Boiling silverside seems ... just wrong. Whack it in the slow cooker and leave it all day ... Make your gravy from the juices that run out of the joint :yum:

Nope...it's silverside and it's pretty good roasted or boiled. I don't boil it in just water though. Usually there's onion, brown sugar, vinegar, cloves, mustard, pepper, salt, bay leaves and a few other things in the water. Comes out tasting pretty awesome.

roasting is much easier.