Description
A smoked pork belly, braided like a bread loaf—why not!
Ingredients
- 1 slab pork belly, about 5 pounds
- Plenty of BBQ rub (we chose an Asian-inflected one for this)
- Your favorite BBQ sauce that matches your rub (we used a good spicy one with some oyster sauce mixed in)
Instructions
- Preheat your smoker to 250°F (121°C). Use your Smoke X2 to monitor the pit temp throughout the cook.
- Prepare the belly for braiding by cutting it into four strands. Cut long slits through the meat starting one or two inches from one of the short sides.
- Season the strands well on all their sides.
- Fan out the strands and braid in the following order: move 4 over 2, move 1 over 3, move 2 over 3. Repeat.
- Pin the loose ends together with a skewer or sew them together with some butcher’s twine and a thick needle. (Obviously, remove the needle.)
- Place the meat in the smoker, insert a probe in it and connect it to your Smoke X2. (This is more for monitoring purposes than anything else at this point.)
- Cook the meat for 2 hours, then wrap it in aluminum foil, re-insert the probe, and set the high-temp alarm on the meat channel to 165°F (74°C). Put the meat back in the smoker and turn the smoker temp up to 300°F (149°C).
- When the high-temp alarm sounds on your meat channel, check the belly in a few places with your Thermapen ONE to make sure the whole thing has reached the target temp.
- Unwrap the braid, put it back in the smoker, and brush it with your sauce. Cook about 30–45 more minutes, until the sauce sets up.
- (Total cook time will be somewhere in the vicinity of 4 to 6 hours, depending on several factors.)
- Remove the meat from the smoker, take a bunch of pictures—if you want to—and carve it up! Get some good sandwich bread for it, or just go to town with your fingers!
