Pork Experiment

I came into the possession of some exceptional pork chops and pork cheeks, the pork chops are a kurobuta chop I get from the local Japanese grocery store, the pork cheeks came to me via Matt from Phat Matt's BBQ, they were a few chunks that escaped being used for his weekly special.  One of the things I look for whenever buying pork is a bright white fat.  Yellow or cream colored fat means the pork has gotten a little shelf aged.  Here is a shot of some exceptional pork.

The pork was to be combined with a cure, but, I could not find my Tenderquik, so I went with a simple brine of 1 tablespoon Turbinado sugar, 2 tablespoon of sea salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper and 1 teaspoon of Simply Marvelous Sweet and Spicy BBQ rub.  This was heated until things dissolved, then cooled with ice.

The brine looks a little dark here, more ice was added to get it cold, it is important to get it cold for safety from bacterial growth.  After enough ice was added to cool it, which brought the total water content to 2.5 cups, the whole thing was combined in a vacuum marinade container. I put a plastic sheet over it to aid in keeping the pork submerged.

The top was put on and a vacuum was established to aid in getting the brine into the meat. Once the meat has sits for at least 12 hours, I will take it out and soak it in clean water for at least 8 hours to get some salt out.  This process was started on Friday, so I expect that by Sunday, this meat will be ready for the smoker.  My hope is that I can use cold rainy weather to smoke this in a very moist environment at 200F to 225F and have a few pieces of smoked meat similar to Canadian bacon.  We shall see.