There are 3 steps to this recipe:
1. Season and smoke
2. Steam and tenderize
3. Caramelize
Each step takes roughly 2 hours, so plan for about 6 hours of cooking. There's no real urgency to the first two steps, but you need to keep an eye on step 3. So here goes:
1. Season and smoke: Take a pork belly and cube it into portions a bit bigger than what you plan to end with. Fat will render and you'll lose water, so the pieces will shrink. Season all over, not too heavy, with a decent rub. I like Dizzy Pig IPA for this. Smoke at 250 for about two hours. The pork fat will start to render, and you should get a bit of browning.
This is 20 pounds of pork belly, on three levels, ready to go on a multilevel indirect setup in a large Egg. The spider with a stone is the heat deflector; adjustable rig with two grids above that, and finally a rig extender on top of that. The spider isn't shown here - it's already in the egg and pretty much lives there. Awesome setup, from Ceramic Grill Store. You could use the plate setter with the grid above just as easily. As for smoke, apple or cherry wood are great for this cook.
This gets about 2 hours of smoke, until the outside gets a nice brown color:
2. Steam and tenderize. The next step is to use steam to render fat and tenderize. You could leave these on the egg and cook them down indirect, but it takes longer and generates a huge amount of rendered fat. Instead, take all those pieces and throw them in a foil pan, and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Get the egg up to 300. Or do it in the oven. Let them steam a few hours. You'll end up with a lot of rendered fat in the bottom of the foil pan. Drain this off.
3. Caramelize. Remove the aluminum foil. Add a few good handfuls of brown sugar and about half a stick of butter. You'll also need a few good shakes of worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce. Drizzle all over with honey. Cook and stir every 20 minutes. If there's too much watery liquid in the pan, drain it off. Add more brown sugar liberally as needed. Give it a taste now and then. Finally, add kosher salt to taste. I find these can take a lot of flavor, so adjust as you go and add whatever it needs. You can add more rub if you want, as well.
Malcolm Reed adds a glaze at the end. I don't think it's needed because you're building it with the brown sugar, salt, worcestershire and Tabasco anyhow.
Enjoy!
