Big bone-in pork chops

Powak

Picked up a 6 pack of thick (1.5-2") bone-in center cut chops from BJs today. The wife and I like em juicy but not pink. I'm thinking 350° direct, fire ring height for 13-14 minutes a side, turning em 45° halfway thru each side for hatching. Sound like a good way to go on these?

nolaegghead

If you don't like them pink, pull them when the internal temp is above 145F.  They're on the edge of medium well. (temp will rise to 150+)

Pork benefits from a dry brine if you cook at medium or above.  Salt them a day before (plenty of salt) dry. 

A wet brine keeps them from developing a good outside sear. 

Foghorn

@nolaegghead gives good advice.  At 160 they turn to rubber. 

YukonRon

Salt and Sugar are the miracle workers for pork. NOLA speaks the truth.

GrateEggspectations

nolaegghead said:

If you don't like them pink, pull them when the internal temp is above 145F.  They're on the edge of medium well. (temp will rise to 150+)

Pork benefits from a dry brine if you cook at medium or above.  Salt them a day before (plenty of salt) dry. 

A wet brine keeps them from developing a good outside sear. 

I think that a wet brine only prevents a sear if the surface of the meat is still wet when attempting to grill.

The type of brine employed is irrelevant to the ability to sear - the moisture on the surface of the meat when grilling is the factor that bears consideration.

If employing a wet brine and wanting to get a nice sear, you need simply rinse and dry the chops thoroughly prior to hitting the grill (which are instructions included in a number of recipes employing a wet brine).

These were wet brined, and I held back on the searing.....

nolaegghead

GrateEggspectations said:

nolaegghead said:

If you don't like them pink, pull them when the internal temp is above 145F.  They're on the edge of medium well. (temp will rise to 150+)

Pork benefits from a dry brine if you cook at medium or above.  Salt them a day before (plenty of salt) dry. 

A wet brine keeps them from developing a good outside sear. 

I think that a wet brine only prevents a sear if the surface of the meat is still wet when attempting to grill.

The type of brine employed is irrelevant to the ability to sear - the moisture on the surface of the meat when grilling is the factor that bears consideration.

If employing a wet brine and wanting to get a nice sear, you need simply rinse and dry the chops thoroughly prior to hitting the grill (which are instructions included in a number of recipes employing a wet brine).

These were wet brined, and I held back on the searing.....

You have more "free water" in the meat from a wet brine.  Sure, you can power through it, but your meat will steam more, even if you dry the outside.  Or you can add sugar to your rub - very common with pork chops.  The sugar will caramelize eventually, but it's harder to get the maillard on the meat proteins, and a the amino acid reactions are money, carbohydrate alone isn't all it could be.  I could throw a frozen block of ice cream on a skillet and get the sugar to caramelize.

This (below) is from http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/03/the-food-lab-pork-chops-blah.html

But there's an even bigger hit to flavor caused by brining. Check this out:

See how pale that chop is compared to the plain chop? Brined meat has so much free water stored up inside of it, that as soon as it hits a hot pan, it begins to shed it in copious quantities. Evaporating this water takes lots of energy from the skillet that would otherwise be going toward browning the chop. Your meat ends up steaming for the first few minutes in the pan, which means that it's very difficult to develop that gorgeous browned crust.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I never brine my meat, and it's for these very reasons. It's a band-aid that causes more injuries than it mends.

So what are better alternatives?

Dry Brining

I'm a strong advocate of dry-brining: the process of heavily salting a piece of meat and letting it rest before cooking it. A lot of folks get annoyed at the term "dry-brining," because, well, it's technically an inaccurate term.

Etc.

nolaegghead

There's no right or wrong.  There are many different techniques.  Whatever works for you and makes something you like is what you should do.  You can sear very hot (maybe at 700 F) and power through any moisture in the meat quickly from a wet brine.  Experiment, see what works for you.

Powak

I wound up doing the direct fire ring height at 350, 15-17 minutes a side and they came out killer. Didn't get too much of the browned crust but I think I can achieve that by reverse searing next time.

DocWonmug

Using the Food Lab reference kindly provided by nolaegghead, I will do my first set of thick chops. Planning an overnight dry brine with kosher salt and sugar, then a reverse sear. I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow.

I am wondering about any spices/aromatics in the dry brine. Anybody have any ideas or suggestions?