Three-hour dry brine for flavor, light ground-pepper/garlic rub, deliberately low and slow (225) on the Traeger for minimum smokiness and "purest" taste, pulled at 138, served pink at ~142. The result was as chewy as mainline pork and surprisingly low in flavor and juiciness. The pork came from a good local butcher @ $14.95/#, roughly 2X his mainline price. I'm thinking the culprits were the dry brine and low and slow ("Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...."), but I'd value others' opinions. Thanks.
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Disappointed In First-Time Berkshire Pork. Am I Nuts?
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- Mar 2020
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- Muskego, WI
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I get thick cut bone in Berkshire chops from Wild Fork routinely. $11.98/lb. Always terrific. I dry brine for a half day then on my Recteq at 235 to 140 IT. Never fails to be outstanding. So basically the same method as yours. That only leaves the meat itself as the culprit? 🤷♂️
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The only thing needed for wet or dry brining is salt. All the other flavors are surface treatment. Salt, then sit overnight for best results. Add unsalted rubs or seasonings before cooking.
Can't be certain about the photo's but the color of the meat and the lack of fat looks suspiciously like commodity pork. It's not unheard of for retailers to label meat incorrectly.
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My only suggestions, given your details and your outcome, is try hot & fast (325-350) up to 135-145, instead of cooking at 225.
Also, wet brining happens to be something that I'm personally fond of with pork, especially thicker cuts. What I find works excellent is to use 1 gallon water, 1 cup table salt, soak 1 hour, so 1-1-1. If you don't need 1 gallon, cut the amounts in half so the concentration is the same but still go 1hr. You can go 2 hrs if they're especially thick. I use 1 hr for 1-1.5" pork chops and chicken pieces. I've done side by sides and wet brine wins every time. Not necessary, but it has the edge if you can do it.
Aside form that, I too am leery of specialty pork. I've bought pricier Duroc pork ribs and didn't notice anything special, in fact I almost felt like they were drier and less impressive than standard commodity grocery store pork. Never tried Berkshire/Kurobuta, that I know of anyway, so my experience is rather limited in that regard.
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When I was younger back on the farm our neighbor raised Berkshire hogs. They were in the process of trying to breed them to be a leaner hog back then. Their original claim to fame was you could get lots of lard from one. I don’t think they ever succeeded in making a lean hog out of them. Those just don’t look fatty enough.
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Yeah, while your photo has pepper and stuff on the surface, as best I can tell from looking at the photo it appears that the main part of the chops doesn't have any marbling in the meat itself - just the fat between muscles. That would make it as dry as any commodity pork chop I think.
That said, my main experience with "higher grade" pork was a couple of butts from Porter Road, and their pork brisket (pigsket). The pigsket was phenomenal, but the pulled pork from the butts came out much dryer than we are used to, and I opted not to order those again.
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