Pulled pork in the slow cooker

For a change, I decided to make some pulled pork in my slow cooker, rather than my pellet smoker.

One of the reasons for this is that I had a pork joint to be cooked, from last week’s Riverford delivery; I had planned to give the smoker a good deep clean, but haven’t felt like it recently, being a little poorly. The other reason is that I have been hanging out in a Slow Cooker facebook group, which has got me in the mood for trying things in my slow cooker.

Anyway, I put the joint into the slow cooker, fat side down, and gave it a good covering of a commercial pork rub, then left it running overnight.

This morning, I took it out, removed the fat and skin, and pulled it. It came out in pieces, and pulled easily.

The good – cooking in a covered slow cooker, I got a lot more usable meat juice out of it than when I cook on the smoker. Once pulled, I recombined the meat with the juices, and didn’t really need to add anything else. It was also painless to use, with no need to monitor the temp.

IMG_0061However, it is lacking something, big-time, in taste; and that is smoke. Don’t get me wrong, it is perfectly pleasant pork, and if I had only ever cooked it this way, I think I would be completely satisfied with it; but I am so used to the underlying smokiness of my normal pulled pork that I really miss it. Unusually for me, I found myself reaching for the hot sauce, just to perk it up a little.

I think my next experiment is going to be to cook a pork shoulder on the smoker for 2-3 hours, *then* transfer it to the slow cooker to finish. My understanding is that most of the smoke taste is created in the first couple of hours, whereas the loss of juices happens later. So perhaps by combining the cooking techniques, I can maximise on both. It does mean I will end up with a soft bark (the dark crunchy bit on the outside of the joint), but that doesn’t bother me too much.

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