Saturday, August 14, 2010

Pork Chop Battle, part 2

Now that I have a fancy new gas grill, it was time to test the smoker capabilities.  I opted to do smoked pork chops again, albeit with a simpler recipe.
I brined the pork chops for several hours in a mix of 1/4 cup of kosher salt, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 4 cups water.  I then put them on the grill, along with some wood chips.  My grill is a bit different, so it's not necessary to soak the wood chips. You just drop them in.  There's no direct flame so they don't burn up too quickly.  Anyway, using the BBQ option resulted in a temperature of 350F, which was higher than the 250-275F that is recommended. The chops cooked quickly, in about 40 minutes.  They were tender and moist and tasted like a cross between regular and Canadian bacon.  The smoke flavor and salt level were just about right.  They were not overwhelmingly smoky.  I will definitely be making these again.  If I feel like being a really anal retentive BBQ geek, I'll try cooking them more slowly at the recommended temperature. 
I really like the infrared cooking so far.  I like my meat on the rare side, without a really charred crust, and everything I've cooked so far has come out moist, rare but not underdone, and was nice and tender. 
Next up: Chicken Spiedies

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