Pork Roast Crackling

[LJS]

Hi Kamado People,

I have been smoking for about 2 years now and I have never tried a pork roast style cook and beside whenever I have done pork roasts I have not got the crackling right and this is critical.

So I decided to research a little and found heaps of methods out there, anyway I was stuck on three types 1. Continuous apply of vinegar, 2. Apply lots of salt to fat/skin, boiling water. All of these have the requirement of putting the pork into the kamado at a very hot temperature for around 30-40 mintues before dropping temperature to normal roasting temp of around 180/200°C.

All of the above are required to have a dry roast, not fresh out of the plastic pack , best left overnight. At the last minute I decided to go with boiling water pouring over the fat and then right away into the hot kamado mine was at about 250/270°C range with one chunk of cheery, had no apple in the shed.

Any how after 30min I closed the vents and the temp started to drop. Once at 180°C I left her there until internal reached 75°C and wow wow what a beauty. Moist and perfect crackling. Salt was needed to be added though.  

[adm]

Looks great!

 

I did a boned & rolled pork roast on Sunday - but didn't take any pics unfortunately and it came out great.

 

I have found over the years, the secret to perfect crackling  (in the home oven) is to first make sure the skin is properly dry. Leaving it uncovered overnight in the fridge is a good start to this, then out on the counter before cooking it. You also want the skin properly and deeply scored so the cuts open up a little. Then rub plenty of salt into the cuts and over the rest of the skin. No need for boiling water, vinegar or any of that!

 

Very hot over for the first 20-30 minutes or so, then turn it down to 150C until the internal temperature gets where you need it. Obviously this profile is difficult on a Kamado so I got mine to 250C, gave the pork roast 25 minutes then shut all the vents to a tiny crack only and just let the temperature slowly fall until the internal temperature was 63C. IIRC at that point, the dome temperature was reading around 160C.

 

At that point, I pulled it out and let it site. The internal temperature rose to 72C and the pork was really nice and juicy with perfect glassy crackling.