Berkshire Pork Chops

[ByTor]

I am loving this site! So many new ideas and I have learned so much fairly quickly. Thanks in advance.

My wife isn’t a big BBQ fan to be honest and probably even less where chops are concerned because they get dry and tough and yet she demands them being done.

I read on the site about the strong recommendation to try Berkshire Pork so I am lucky enough to have a specialty market that carries it.



At first I considered just making them with a simple herb rub but decided to try so more new things and used the Blonder Brine (about 4 hours-had to run to work) and my first batch of Memphis Rub. Broke out the coffee grinder to get Rosemary powder and followed all recipes exact which is extremely difficult for me and why I am the world’s worst baker.

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Grill grates showed 245 outside and about 200 toward the center. Trying to mess with my indirect heat to see what works best and have it high in the outside burners.

Applewood pellets in in the smoke tube.




Lightly coated the chops all over with a little fear of overpowering them. Going no sauce.



The plan was to follow the directions and go 20/20/20 minutes. But since they seemed thick and as mentioned I am stubborn and went 30.

Picture shows 2 of them flipped for the comparison.



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Also note my sous chef playing with bubbles.


Flipped them in 20 minutes and checked and they were 155/160ish. Yikes! Decided not to chat them and just take them as is.


Wife just said it was the best pork chops she has ever eaten and liked them better than steaks! I won’t go that far but they were moist and I loved the rub. Most tender chops ever and great flavor. I definitely want to try some other smoke flavors.



I’ve noticed Meathead isn’t much in the fat and I think that’s nuts ha ha. The fat was good and flavorful on these but I do have to agree with him here. The pork is so good and tender and there really is a lot of fat on these so you can pass it up.

[RonB]

Nicely done.

[Donw]

Those are good looking porkchops. To us there is just more flavor in the Berkshires and other ‘hertiage’ pork than in the standard ‘The Other White Meat’ pigs, and the fat is so tasty. Glad everyone enjoyed them.

[Troutman]

Nicely done and written up. Big fan of Berkshire pork, got some tomahawks in my freezer.

Just to to let you know, a number of your pix didn’t load properly. You might want to check that.

[ByTor]

Yeah, I’m having issues. It was a pain to get them inserted.

edit- what's weird is they show up on my phone.

[Mr. Bones]

Beautiful Job, Start to Finish, Brother!

Looks like ya done nailed it, an I can only imagine that Berkshire flavour!

I'd mow off th whole lot, an seconds on them there taters, which reminds me:

Please, tell me more bout them taters, they are a worthy match to th Heritage Pork, Brother...

[Troutman]

I make garlic rosemary taters that look like that.

[Sweaty Paul]

Nicely done.

[IowaGirl]

Huh. I looked at the photo of the cooked chops in the first post and realized that is the kind of pork I grew up eating. My grandfather raised purebred Yorkshire hogs and I did a lot of hog chores for Grandpa when I was in high school.

Even though Yorks aren't considered a premium breed nowadays, like Berkshire and Duroc, this is what York chops looked like in the 60s and 70s. The meat was darker, there was more fat, and the fat was not dead white. Unfortunately my grandmother was of the opinion that pork (well all meat, actually) needed to be cooked until it was dry as dust, so she managed to ruin many otherwise lovely chops. But my mom had a lighter hand with her cooking, and my family ate lots of good pork.

Thanks for the blast from the past! They look yummy.