pulling the pulled pork

The Science of Pulled Pork – How to Make It (+ Recipe)

Have you ever wonder why you can pull pulled pork into a lot of tiny strands? Why it’s so different from a quickly grilled pork chop? Why it isn’t tough, but soft and tender (despite having been cooked for hours)? If so, you’re in the right place because we were wondering about exactly those things as well. When you come to think of it, pulled pork is pretty special, hence we’ll take a science deep dive into pulled pork.

What’s pulled pork?

Pulled pork is an American pork dish. The pork in the dish is cooked in such a way that it can be pulled apart in strands. These strands of meat are soft and succulent and can be mixed with a sauce or spices which it soaks up. It makes a very flavourful topping for a sandwich, wrap, but can also serve as a whole dinner.

Choosing a cut of meat

Not every part of a pig can be transformed into pulled pork. The meat structure has to be such that it can ultimately fall apart in those thin strands and still be soft and juicy, as opposed to dry and dense. As we’ve discussed before for beef stew as well as spare ribs, whether that happens depends on the part of the pig the meat comes from. But to understand that, let’s zoom in on some pig’s muscle structures.

Muscle structure

Muscles, both in humans, as well as in pigs are a bunch of muscle fibers. Each fiber is a long thin strand that can contract or stretch. Each fiber is protected by some tissue. Several fibers together are bundled up again and protected by connective tissue. One muscle can easily exists of several of these groups of fibers which again contain a lot of individual fibers. One fiber isn’t strong, but the set of them together can be a strong muscle.

The size of the muscle is an indication for its strength. Some muscles need to carry a lot more weight (a head for instance) than others. But it’s not just the size that depends on its role, also the composition changes, especially the amount of connective tissue and fat.

What is  connective tissue

Connective tissue helps a muscle do its job. Therefore, you can find more of it in a muscle that needs to work hard during the life of a pig. There are several types of connective tissue. Some help connect the muscles to the bone, other connective tissues sits throughout the muscles.

A lot of this internal connective tissue is made up of collagen. Collagen is a tough molecule and isn’t nice to eat, even when heated. However, you can break down collagen into gelatin by cooking it for longer periods of time.

Importance of fat

Fat can give meat a lot of flavour. Some flavour molecules dissolve better in fat than in water so they will not be present if there’s only water. When cooking fat for a longer period of time fat will also melt and become soft and part of the juices around the meat.

Skeletal muscles

The muscle type that we just discussed are what you would call skeletal muscles. The muscles in the heart and other organs have a slightly different structure.

Choosing a cut of meat for pulled pork

An example of a muscle that didn’t have to work hard during a pig’s life it is the pork loin. This muscle hasn’t had to work a lot so it doesn’t contain a lot of connective tissue. As a result, it cooks quite quickly and will be moist as such. However, it won’t pull apart nicely.

Muscles that have had to work hard, a should or neck for instance (they have to hold up the head or move the legs) contain more connective tissue. Since this connective tissue sits in between those bundles of fibers, it separates the meat into fibers once its cooked. However, it does take longer for the meat to cook since the connective tissue takes time to heat and ‘melt’ away into gelatin.

Therefore, it is best to choose a cut of meat that comes from a part of the pig that had to work hard during its life. A good example of this is neck meat. In order for the pig to move its neck, move its head up and down, left to right, etc. the neck muscles had to work hard.

pork neck with rub, ready for barbecue

Why making pulled pork takes time

If you don’t cook the connective tissue properly, it will be tough and rubbery. The connective tissue has to break down and literally melt away in the meat. This takes time. but when it’s done,  the meat should fall apart by itself.

Making pulled pork

Before diving in the recipes, let’s discuss the general way of working, scroll down to find the recipes themselves.

So we know that pulled pork needs to cook for a long time to become nice and tender. However, cooking meat for a long time may also result in burning or drying out the outside of the meat. When you make your pulled pork on a barbecue, grill or in the oven you tend to start hot and then continue at a lower temperature.

Start high

pork neck lying on the barbcue ready to become pulled pork
That dark brown outside was all done in the first few minutes of cooking.

Cooking at a low temperature is great for achieving doneness, however, it’s not great for flavour development. Flavour forms mostly at higher temperatures, due to the Maillard reaction. At the high temperatures the meat browns and that’s where a lot of the flavour is formed. So you start by browning of your chosen piece of pork on a high heat, to develop these flavours.

Why not do it at the end (as you do with sous vide cooking)? Remember, this meat will literally fall apart at the end. It will be really hard to brown it off and move it around at that point.

Proceed at a moderate temperature and be patient

Once your flavour is developed you want to make sure the inside of the meat has time to cook burn the outside is burned. That is why you will then ramp down the temperature.

You’ll be ok with losing some moisture at this point, but you don’t want to lose too much. Since heating can easily take hours in an oven or a barbecue you tend to wrap up the meat into aluminium foil to catch all the juices and keep it all together at the same time.

Using pressure cooking

It doesn’t have to take hours to make pulled pork. Instead, you can also make it within an hour and a half if you use a pressure cooker (e.g. an Instantpot)! so how does that work?

You also start at a high temperature to brown of your pieces of meat (you might not have place for a full neck or shoulder to fit into the pressure cooker). Once nicely browned, you add water (and/or other liquids, see recipe below for some ideas), because you need it to pressure cook.

The trick of pressure cooking is that by creating a high pressure the boiling point of water will go up. This will then increase the cooking time. Because the pressure cooker is a moist environment you won’t even run the risk of the pork drying out. At the end of the pressure cooking cycle all the meat will be soft and tender and fall apart similarly to that made on a barbecue or in the oven!

pulling the pulled pork

Pulled Pork Science

Yield: 20 portions
Prep Time: 10 hours
Cook Time: 5 hours
Total Time: 15 hours

Ingredients

  • 3kg of pork neck (with little fat on the outside)
  • 100g of spice rub (or enough to coat the entire piece of meat with a good amount of rub), you can choose any type of spice rub, see below for a suggestion

Spice rub suggestion

  • 40g brown sugar
  • 35g salt
  • 25g paprika powder
  • 2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsb onion powder
  • 2/3 tsp cayenne pepper

Optional

  • Barbecue sauce & coleslaw for serving

Instructions

  1. Take your piece of meat and assure it's been completely thawed if previously frozen.
  2. Cover the whole piece of meat with plenty spice rub. See photo in the post, be generous.
  3. Leave the meat to rest for at least 2-4 hours, we left it overnight. This isn't done necessarily for flavour but for moisture extraction. It helps to dry the meat.
  4. Light your barbecue to a moderate high heat (200-250C) when using charcoal (the actual temperature will easily be 40 degrees lower, this is fine, even better). Charcoal will cool down overtime, so it's worthwhile to start at a higher heat to prevent having to refill all the time.
  5. Place the meat on a hot spot on the barbecue and roast on both sides for 3-8 minutes until a nice dark brown, almost black colour.
  6. Move the meat to a cooler place on the barbecue. Close the lid and let it cook more slowly for the next few hours. Regularly (every 30 minutes or so), check the internal temperature of the meat.
  7. Once the internal temperature has reached 65-70C, carefully take the meat from the barbecue and wrap in aluminium foil. Wrap it well, such that any moisture cannot leave the meat and will stay within the aluminium foil.
  8. Take the meat from the barbecue again once it's around 85C. Carefully take it off, there will be a lot of moisture within the aluminium foil, it can burn you easily.
  9. Place the pork in a tray and open the aluminium foil. Let all the moisture out and save it in the tray.
  10. The meat will be noticeably softer than it was at the start now. Place it back on the barbecue, keep the aluminium foil at the bottom but leave the top and sides open. The pork has to dehydrate again.
  11. Once the meat has reached an internal temperature of 90-92C you can take it from the barbecue. The meat should be soft and you should be able to pull it apart with two forks. If not, place it back on the barbecue, it will need more time.
  12. Before actually pulling, leave the meat to rest for at least 30 minutes.
  13. Pull the pork apart and pour back most of the moisture you caught in the aluminium foil. This will rehydrate the pork slightly, while keeping the crunchy bits.
  14. Serve with coleslaw, barbecue sauce or any other combination you'd prefer.

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One comment

  1. I had not heard of using the pork neck for pulled pork. I have had great success with shoulders, but will have to try a neck next time I use the smoker.

    Thanks for this article!

    -Rachel

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