Grilling pork chops over direct high heat coming from naturally sourced wood charcoal just bring your mind to a peaceful afternoon in your own backyard, hanging out with friends, drinking a cold one after a long, hard day’s work.
It’s not really about the meat or the drinking or the friends, is about the combined experience of you having full of what you ear and how it tastes.
But to have full control of the meat, you first need to have a better understanding of the heat, what it’s produced by and the different cooking methods depending on the cut of your pork.
Today we’ll be discussing exactly how to cook pork meat, at what heat and temperature, based specifically on what part of the animal the meat comes from.
Table of Contents
Understanding how Different Cuts of Pork Grill
There are more than 7 different cuts of pork which can be made and from which butchers can derive different qualities of meat.
The highest quality of meat comes from the shoulder and the loin of the animal – those are the portions with the highest marbling (fat within the muscle cells of the meat), which provide an enormous potential to the meat.
It can be flavored in all sorts of ways, from brazing then grilling, to specialized dry rubs, day-long marinades and even modest salting and peppering with a lemon pepper.
Understanding how to cook these meats requires some sort of prior experience or an eye for details, because the fats in the meats react differently to heat at different times during the cooking process.
If you really want to get the most optimal taste, texture and mouth-feel of the meat, you would introduce some sort of additional spice which can help break down the protein in the meat.
Protein cooks at a lower heat than big tallow and lard, which means that it’s sooner rather than later that your pork chop from a loin or shoulder would be cooked.
The rear of the pork is fattier with less protein, which means it requires longer to properly cook. The brisket comes from the front part of the animal, which is why it cooks the longest, often more than 6-7 hours in total.
Finally, you need to really understand the resting period of the meat – even the quickest cooking requires that you rest the meat for at least 6-7 minutes, with or without foil.
This will allow for the moisture from the meat to come out and fully saturate it, countering the dryness which comes from the direct heat grilling.
For even more control over cooking meats with charcoal, there are types of grills which give the user the option to lower the grill great into the coals even more, directly over the heat.
These types of grills are called Argentinian types of grills and one of the most fantastic iterations are the Smart Flip Grills from GrillerDude.com. They truly make grilling pork shops over coals easier and more enjoyable.
The Easiest and the Most Difficult Pork Cuts to Grill
The most difficult pork cuts to grill are the ones which have high muscle and low-fat amount like the brisket or the neck. Pork is known for it’s high-fat profile pretty much everywhere, however, there are portions which are more muscular, depending on how the animal was raised.
Sedentary pork is fatter than lean pork, like for instance is naturally raised pork – both variants cook differently as muscle fibers tend to be leaner and higher in protein.
Secret Recipe
One secret recipe for fantastic grilled pork chops requires 1 tablespoon of honey, 3-4 onions, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, sunflower oil, black pepper, mustard, Worcestershire sauce half a cup, half a cup of soy sauce and lots of patience.
This marinade recipe can be adjusted for pork amount, but will usually comfortably serve four people. Let the marinade sink into the pork chops for at least 1-2 hours, best sit time is 24 hours.
Let the pork sit in the fridge the whole time then before cooking, rest on the counter for 10 minutes – after that grill at your discretion – the rend results are fantastic, especially if you can control the heat using your Smart Flip Grill from GrillerDude.com.
