What to do with this Pigsket (Pork Brisket)?

[jfmorris]

I pulled a pork brisket from Porter Road out of the freezer with a weight of 1.95 pounds, planning to smoke it today. Last time I did one it took about 6 hours to reach 195 and done. This one looked about like that one - before I unpacked it!

I just unpacked it from the vacuum packaging, and darned if they didn't fold a super thin peice of meat in half and pack it up.

I doubt its even an 0.75 inch thick at the thin end.

Should I cook this folded in half the way it came, with the fat cap on the outside, to give it more thickness to avoid drying out? Or just flop it out on the grate and maybe wrap it earlier than I would normally do? I.e. 150 instead of 170? Somehow I feel this will cook quicker than 6 hours as well, if I run the SNSK at 250F. The last one was about the size this one was when folded in half. I.e. much much thicker.

Any advice is appreciated.

Jim

[jfmorris]

Maybe I should roll it up and tie with twine?

[pkadare]

Sure, and perhaps turn it into a sort of porchetta!

[IFindZeroBadCooks]

It does seem like a case where twine could be useful.

[Caffeine88]

I'm no expert on pigskits, for sure, but I think I'd leave it folded and keep a similar thickness to what you've done in the past. Thin should cook a lot faster, just because the heat transfer distance is less. You've got more surface area to volume to loose moisture, too, if it's thin.

[Alabama Smoke]

I can offer no experienced advice, but my first thought was to smoke it folded up in an attempt to retain moisture and to make it take longer to cook in the hopes of low and slow will hopefully make it more tender. And yes, I believe I would tie it up tightly with string. I look forward to your outcome on this one!

[Jim White]

Just to complicate your thoughts further, I'd consider rolling with the fat cap to the inside. The pork loin I cooked that way this week came out incredibly moist.

[jfmorris]

So for those advising rolling up, would you unroll it to carve? The grain runs lengthwise in the direction it was folded, so carving across a cylinder rolled that way would be with the grain instead of against it. So would I want to roll lengthwise?

[Jim White]

I'd probably unroll and carve the remaining fat cap off, especially if it has silverskin..

[IFindZeroBadCooks]

I’d unroll and carve simply because it would be easier to cut as needed for service. If there is no stuffing, there seems to be minimal benefit to cutting while rolled.

[jfmorris]

Ok folded and tied. I seasoned all sides with Henrik ‘s Bonifide Beef and KC Royale before folding. It’s on the SNSK now.

[Henrik]

Nice 👌👌👌!

[Spinaker]

Looking forward to seeing the results. Interesting approach!

[jfmorris]

Well, with a goodly portion about 3/4 inch thick I wasn’t sure what else to do. We’ll see what happens.

[Spinaker]

Yeah, I think you made the right call here. It is tough when the meat is that thin.

[texastweeter]

Pork pastrami, aka bacon.

[jfmorris]

Got a 9 pound belly I am going to put into a cure some time today, so bacon will be next weekends cook!

[texastweeter]

With wild hogs I make bacon out of ham and shoulders too, many times the belly is way too thin. I'll usually leave it on the ribs to cook spares. The actually belly flap ends up ground for sausage and or meatballs.

[jfmorris]

Well folks, I got busy drilling and chiseling through more than 12 inches of cinderblock and brick to make a new dryer vent run on the house, of course making 2 trips to Home Depot during the afternoon, and kind of let dinner get away from me. The SNSK was running all afternoon at a DOME temp of 225F to 250F, but I imagine grate level was closer to 200F in TurboSlow mode. So the cook progressed slowly. I never broke out the Smoke to monitor anything, and just had my Thermapen sitting on the side table to check the meat.

We ended up eating Zaxby's Buffaloed Blue Zalads around 6pm as the pork brisket was NOT done. In fact, it kind of shrunk up, the meat in the thin end thickening as it shrunk, and the string wasn't doing the best job holding it together as that happened, so I cut the string around 5pm, and flattened it back out, trying to get some color and bark on the side that had been against itself. You can see marks below where it had been tied (this is the fat cap side).

It hit 190ish in most spots around 9pm, and felt soft to the probe all over, so I wrapped it and put it in the fridge for tonight's dinner. Think I will reheat it in the SV back to 195F for about an hour or so, then carve and serve. I did taste a small scrap that came off last night, and it was good.

I guess the lesson here is that maybe the butcher at Porter Road knew what he was doing, or the low temp I was smoking at 225 or a little under prevented the thin end from ever getting overcooked, as I never saw any part of it above 190ish with the Thermapen at the end. And the way it shrunk and thickened worked out well I think.

[wrgilb]

I think you can get by reheating in the SV to around 135. If you reheat to 195, you'll need to double bag it to prevent leaks.

[fzxdoc]

If you have a vacuum sealer, those bags can hold up at 195°, but I wouldn't trust a Ziploc. Their seams are only good up to about 158°. After that, you'll risk a leak.

Kathryn

[jfmorris]

Sadly, I was really busy all day yesterday, and when setting up the SV at about 5:30pm, the wife asked what did I mean the food would be reheated in 45 to 60 minutes, haha! So, to the microwave it went, in the form of slices on a plate. I made sure to not overheat, and it was very good.

[fzxdoc]

Good to know about the pork drawing (and thickening) up as it cooks, Jim.

I've got two Porter Road Pigskets in the freezer. They need to see the light of day and make room in that overstuffed freezer. I feel like wearing boots with toe guards every time I open that darned freezer!

Kathryn

[jfmorris]

Kathryn, I found this and set it out to cook due to the fact that I had to move and defrost the chest freezer. The fact that I was depleted enough to relocate all contents into the 3 fridge freezer units makes me think I need to either not bother plugging its back in, or else I gotta buy more meat!

[Mr. Bones]

texastweeter feelin dat, doin some Auxillary Bleedin fer ya, hereabouts.

[jfmorris]

texastweeter I cannot think of how many times I've caught the hitch on the back of the truck or my old Yukon in the dark. Worst time was on a trip with one of those "hitch hauler" shelves sticking off the back of the Yukon. I was busting my shin for a week in Florida every time I walked around the back of the car.

[jfmorris]

The pigsket came out good, but was reheated using the "science oven" on 50% power for a couple of minutes, to knock the chill off and not recook past 140F or so. Very good.

[treesmacker]

That does look good - it looks a lot like ham - doesit taste like ham?

[jfmorris]

treesmacker it does look like ham, but it doesn't taste super "hammy". It's not cured, just smoked, and this cut has the consistency of brisket.

[IFindZeroBadCooks]

Well you convinced me to add pigskit to my eventual Porter Road order.😃

[FireMan]

In my ignorance of just what a pigsket is, when you said folded in half & mentioned .75” of at least some portion my first thought would have been to grill it as a big old pork chop. Looked like it turned out good for ya. Nice work.

[jfmorris]

Pork Brisket = pigsket. Something kinda trendy I suppose that I picked up from Porter Road a while back, and found in the bottom of the freezer. Its kinda small at 2 pounds, but tasty. This shrunk up and thickened up as it cooked, and pretty much cooked like a beef brisket, just on a much smaller scale.