Porkstrami: finished product, untasted, so if there are no more posts you’ll know I died of food poisoning.

About ten days ago, I described how I went about brining my pork shoulder. Here it is, getting ready for its salty bath:

pork shoulder, rinsed and ready for the brine

pork shoulder, rinsed and ready for the brine

It’s in a plastic garbage bag. I added the brine, tied it off, and kept it at approximately 36 degrees F for ten days. Every day, I turned it or shook it up a bit.

Yesterday was day 10, to be precise, so I removed the boneless shoulder from the brine, rinsed it off, dried it. Then I dusted it liberally with paprika and ground black pepper, and left it in the fridge for another day to let the outer surface dry. Here it is, ready for the grill.

pork shoulder plus simple dry rub

pork shoulder plus simple dry rub

I banked the coals to one side, and used two to three cups of soaked hickory chips to create the smoke. The pork sat suspended on a grate at the opposite end of the barbecue.

ready to smoke!

ready to smoke!

Eight hours later, it smelled like the real thing and looked like the real thing, but the internal temperature was only 120 degrees F. I sliced a bit off one end, and it tasted great, but still looked raw. I popped it in the oven at 250 degrees F, and left it in (about two hours) until the internal temperature was 160 degrees F. And here it is:

the finished porkstrami, cooling

the finished porkstrami, cooling

There are a number of questions yet to be answered. Will it kill me? Make me wish I were dead? Will the middle be as tasty as the end bit I sampled earlier today? Is it smoky enough? Too salty, not salty enough?

And if this works, why not make lambstrami?

D.

4 Comments

  1. Dean says:

    And if this works, why not make lambstrami?

    Because it might taste baaaaad?

  2. Dean says:

    Also, I usually allow 10, 11 hours for the average shoulder, but it should have been warmer than 120 after 8 hours. If you’re relying on the thermometer in the BBQ lid, be aware that they can be wildly wrong and you’re better to use a digital to check smoker temp.

  3. Dean says:

    AND A THIRD THING.

    That looks good.

  4. Walnut says:

    I barbecued on a very cold day, so that might have had something to do with it. Just as well, since I wanted to do a “cold smoke” technique anyway.

    It’s delicious. Sliced it thinly, fried it up like bacon, and had porkstrami sandwiches last night. Everyone loved them and no one got sick. (Looks like bacon when it fries up, but tastes much more like pastrami.)