Home Cured and Smoked Pork Chops on the Grill

If you follow this blog on a regular basis and can remember back to January, I went on a home curing and smoking kick.  Ham, bacon, and pork chops.  The ham and pork chops were vacuum packed and frozen for later use.  Well, we grilled up some of the cured and smoked pork chops last week.  Here is how they turned out.

Thawed and ready to do.  I was really happy at how the color developed over the 7 months in the freezer.  The chops had a very nice hickory flavor right out of the package.

On a screaming hot grill.  About 5 minutes a side.  The smoke rolling out of the stack had an enticing, smokehouse hickory scent.  

Done and ready for devouring.  How were they?  The crispy fat was especially nice.  Pork fat is always good.  But this fat and the meat around the fat had a nice bacon flavor.  It was a nice surprise.  The rest of the meat had a subtle had a nice subtle hickory flavor mixed in with hammy overtones.  I will be making this again for sure.

One issue was that some of the chops were a tad too salty.  I will rectify that in the future by soaking in ice water longer, perhaps overnight, to ensure that all of the salt is removed before smoking.  Other than than, these chops were better than any store bought smoked pork chop I have ever prepared.  

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Home Cured and Smoked Pork Chops

Ever had a smoked and grilled pork chop?  You end up with the best of both worlds: a nice hammy taste with a grilled, crispy pork fat flavor.  Pork heaven on a plate for sure.  So, since we have been on a pork curing kick around here lately and our butcher had pork rib roasts on sale for $2.99/lb, we decided to experiment.

First, we picked up a nice looking pork rib roast from Dave's Country Meats...

We rinsed with water, patted dry, and removed the membrane from the back of the bones.  Then covered all surfaces 1/4 cup of kosher salt, placed in our non-reactive pan, covered with foil, and place in the refrigerator for some happy time...

Every other day we drained the water pulled out of the meat by the salt, reapplied a fine coating of fresh kosher salt, and placed back in the frig.  After 6 days of curing, I removed from the frig, rinsed the roast throughly, and allowed to soak for 2 hours in cold water to remove all of the excess salt...

After 2 days...

Starting to look "hammy"...

After 6 days...

Don't you see the inner pork chop just trying to get out?

At this point, I lit my smoker and brought to a temperature of 190 F.  Then, I added hickory to the ash pan for my smoke flavor.  Then, I inserted a temperature probe into the roast from the back, between two rib bones and placed on the smoker...

I smoked at 190 F until the internal temperature of the meat was 155 F.  Then, I plunged the meat into a cold water bath to stop the cooking process, patted dry, and put in the refrigerator to cool overnight for slicing...

Here is the sliced product...

My slicing turned out to be a bit of a "hack" job.  I couldn't cut through the rib bones as the chine bone was still in place.  So, after 3 ugly bone-in chops, I removed the bones and sliced for boneless chops.

It was too cold to grill, so we vacuum packed for grilling at a warmer date...

Just by visual inspection, they look great.  They look hammy and juicy, and they smell perfect.  I cannot wait to try them on the grill.  I will report back after the grilling is done...

Thanks for stopping by...

Bill