Apple juice injected into pork shoulder

[KamadoSimon]

Did a 10 hour indirect cook on the Kamado Joe yesterday - boned & rolled pork shoulder which was injected with apple juice & rub in butt rub. Had some oak chips in which gave a little smokey addition. I didn't baste during the cook, but did have a drip pan with water underneath the whole time. I pulled it after 10 hours when the middle of the pork was at 94C. It then sat in foil & towels for an hour to rest.

Then I removed the crackling, salted & put back on using indirect heat for 15 minutes or so - the best crackling we've had on the KJ so far. Properly brittle & gorgeous!

The meat came out really really well too - except I don't think you could tell it had been injected with apple juice at all !!

Any pointers on injecting meat for my next one?




The end result:

[JEC]

I just aim for a good squirt on each of the big pieces of meat, a good gauge when you've got enough is it starts coming out of the adjacent hole, I would likely inject a normal size should 8 to 12 times

[BigM]

looks very nice simon i do love pork what weight was it ?

[Steve]

When it comes to injecting pork butts, you need to inject much more than you think you should. I mean you want to inflate that bad boy up, it should visibly increase in size

I use a brine pump to inject mine, then I wrap tightly in clingfilm for several hours to hold the injection in.

Also I wouldn't just inject with apple juice, I use pork stock, made up with apple juice and various herbs and spices. Don't be looking to get strong specific flavours from the injection, you're just looking to boost the flavour of the meat and hopefully increase moisture levels too.

HTH

[KamadoSimon]

looks very nice simon i do love pork what weight was it ?

It was - ate waaaaay too much! No idea on the weight - sorry - just guessed at the 10 hours & it proved to be spot on. I did use a temp probe at 2 hours & 8 hours to be safe & then checked it again at 10 hours before I took it off. Going to get a remote temperature probe next month to make this a bit easier & not have to keep opening the dome though.

[KamadoSimon]

JEC & Steve - thanks for that. I think a) I under did the amount of apple juice and b) it wasn't helped by the fact that it was a rolled shoulder rather than on the bone.

It would plump up when I was injecting, and then oooooozzzzz out from between the roll - will try it on the bone next time, with a lot more juice (mixed with some butt rub) & also wrap in cling film to stop the juice escaping quite so much.