Cooking With Matt! - Pulled Pork Update & Grilling Tips

Well, the outside was nice and crispy, and the first few layers pulled fairly easily, but it got harder to tear apart the closer I got to the bone. The meat was cooked, but I think it could have used a little bit longer on the grill. I let it get up to about 187 degrees F, but by then the grill had cooled down a lot, and it wasn't going to get much hotter any time soon. So I pulled it off and let it sit for 30 minutes, covered loosely with tin foil. After that, I spent ages pulling the meat apart by hand (close to an hour probably.) It isn't the best pulled pork that I've made, but it's still delicious. I've made pulled pork 3 ways now. The first was in the crock pot, and that was fairly easy but took 10-12 hours. Next came the oven, which was also pretty easy, and cut the cook time down to about 6 hours. It heats up the house a lot though, so I only use that method in the winter. Finally there is the grill. This can definitely bring out the best taste in the meat, but you have to watch your fire's temperature a lot to control the speed at which the meat cooks, at least if you're using a charcoal grill. A gas grill makes heat control much easier, since you have a thermometer, but you don't have the same taste as when you cook with charcoal. And if you want the BEST taste, use a charcoal grill (or smoker) and use either natural lump wood charcoal, or chunks of actual wood. Here are some good types of wood to use, depending on the kind of flavor you want: hickory (my personal favorite), mesquite, pecan, apple, alder, oak. There are many other kinds of wood or wood chips that can be used, but these are some of the more common ones. Sometimes you have to mix 2 or more of the wood types together, to mellow out the flavor, because some of the previously mentioned wood varieties can give a very strong and sometimes overly "sweet" taste to the meat. So you balance them out with the addition of hickory or mesquite, to tame the sweetness and bring back more of the smokiness.

Well, that's it for now. Tune in next time for another EXCITING episode of "Cooking With Matt!" Who knows...maybe I'll even post a video version in the future, and make it an actual show! Now that would be fun! lol

Until next time, thanks for reading, and take care. Peace.