Dry Brine Burnt Ends?

[Murdy]

I'm making pork belly burnt ends tomorrow. Should I cut up and salt the pork belly today?

[Jerod Broussard]

Wouldn't hurt.

[Oak Smoke]

I have no idea regarding pork belly but I won’t dry brine pork ribs again. It changed them in a way I didn’t care for. Matt at Meat Church teaches not rub ribs more than 20 minutes before you put them on the smoker. Again this ribs, not belly. I don’t know if the same rules apply.

[Oak Smoke]

DennyWoo I dry brined over night. They seemed almost ham like. The texture was definitely different and I thought they were dryer than any I had ever smoked before. I never tried it again and my ribs went back to turning out just fine. This was on two racks of ribs or I would have thought I had a weird rack of ribs.

[Johnny Booth]

Yep. Me too. Gets ‘hammy’.

[fzxdoc]

Tuffy Stone says in his Championshio Ribs video that the salt cures the rib meat if it's dry brined overnight. The meat is just to thin for that treatment.

Kathryn

[BKYDBBQ]

I use the thicker the cut the longer the dry brine...anything smaller than a butt or brisket I would wait to dry brine the day of. If cutting the pork belly into cubes before dry brining I would probably dry brine 2ish hours before starting the cook...

eta...I have also seasoned them right before I got the smoker ready and saw no difference in taste...by the time the belly is seasoned, smoked, braised in a pan, and then glazed...there are so many flavors floating around I doubt most people will be able to tell whether it was dry brined in advance...

I mainly operate on available time and convenience when it comes to dry brining alot of smaller cuts...

[HawkerXP]

+1

[Duanessmokedmeats]

I would.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

I personally prefer cubing AFTER the initial cook because the shrinkage isn't uniform. If you cut nice uniform cubes before cooking, some will end up very small or misshapen. If you wanted to cut them for more smoke surface area and seasoning penetration, maybe just cut strips, then after the first part of the cook then finish the strips into cubes?

[HawkerXP]

Might have to try that next time.

After hacking the skin off there is definitely some different thicknesses.

[Murdy]

AAR: I did cube them and went with a 2 hour dry brine, as suggested by BKYDBBQ. They came out great, though I don't have any recent attempts to compare them. My guests liked them. One thing I learned was I got in a bit of a hurry, and some of my cubes ended up a bit smaller than most. The smaller ones really overcooked, some to the point of unpalatability. I will slow down and pay closer attention in the future.