Egg'd & sous-vide pork, attempt 2

Awhile back I posted about trying to blend sous-vide cooking chunks of pork shoulder, and then finishing them on the Egg. The results were not so good, because the 30 minutes on the Egg needed to brown up the pork wasn't enough time to render out fat.

So I reversed the process. I rubbed 4 thick country-rib pork shoulder pieces, and did them indirect, dome 250, with a great big chunk of peach wood. At about 45 minutes, they had reached an internal of 140.

I took them off, bagged them, and dropped them in the water bath at 140 for the next 72 hours.

After taking them out, I had maybe 1.5 C.s of porky liquid that I drained from the bags. Tho' it would have made a great sauce base, I decided to just mix it into massed 'taters. It worked well.

I blasted the pork pieces with my weed burner, and then shredded them. There was only a teaspoon of fat left in each. It made for good sandwiches. Not quite as good as from a freshly cooked whole butt, but still quite edible.

While I would recommend doing whole butts and picnics for a superior result, this works well when all you can get is smaller pieces. I'm glad to have worked this out, because the farmer I get organic pig from usually has butts and picnics processed into halves or thirds for a better price point.