Sous-vide Pork Shoulder Reprise
I made another pork shoulder roast sous-vide tonight. I started by using a rub of Bone Sucking Sauce Rib Rub and some garlic oil then vacuum sealing the pieces of the roast overnight. Then this morning I put them in the bath at about 160F for about 9 hours. I was a little nervous when they came out as the very ends of the smaller pieces were somewhat dry.
The good news is that most of the pork was very succulent and tasted excellent. So overall it was a big success and the meat was quite popular. Once again I regreted not having a commercial vacuum sealer though, as with the FoodSaver level of vacuum the juice seeps back out of the meat and extends the bag pouch. From all I have read if you have a serious commercial unit the vacuum is strong enough that the juices tend to stay in the meat more.
I did learn one important lesson on the way. My test for how much water I needed and how important a cover was was at 165F. At that temperature there wasn’t much evaporation. But I decided to make pulled pork from some of the pork and cranked my thermal bath up to 200F. At that temp (much like we all learned in high school about partial pressures!) the water evaporates much faster and my bath almost went dry. Lesson learned, hopefully.–David
sousvide replied:
After serving the bulk of the pork shoulder as “BBQ Pork” I left a portion of it in the thermal bath & turned it up to 200F for another 4 hours.
The meat came out nearly perfect for “pulled pork” except that (as with some other sous-vide treatments) it was not nearly as brown–it still had some of its natural pink color even though of course it was more than thoroughly cooked.
It was quite moist for a pulled pork, and the juices were wonderful. It will make some great sandwiches!
And all this from a cut of meat that Safeway sells for about $1.50/lb.–David
March 13, 2006 at 10:49 pm. Permalink.