Crockpot Pulled Pork

This recipe ratio turned out tasting very good. There were a few changes to how I did this. The first being the lack of apple juice (one cup). I substituted one cup of unsweetened apple butter (made from winesap apples) plus one cup of water. Also, I didn't toss the cooking liquid from the crockpot, instead I reserved it to a pot and simmered it until it had the consistency of barbecue sauce again. This yielded 2.5 cups of sauce. The cut of pork that was used is called "country pork rib", and you can get this in a large multipack from Costco. It's the same cut style of pork that I use for my kimchi pork soup. The only onions in this batch is what is in the BBQ sauce.

Total prep/cooking time: 8 hours
Yields: 1 quart pulled pork (for 2 lbs of meat)

TheFoodening Blog - pulled pork

Ingredients

2-3 lbs boneless country pork rib

1 c unsweetened apple juice, or 1 c unsweetened apple butter plus 1 c water

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 c brown sugar

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1 c BBQ sauce (I used Trader Joe's Kansas City BBQ sauce)

Directions

In the crockpot, place pork on the bottom. Cover with cloves, apple butter, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and barbecue sauce. Add the water to the bottom (don't wash off the stuff on top of the pork).

Set the crockpot to high for 2 hours. Then, set the crockpot to low for 4 hours. After the 6 hour mark, drain the crockpot of its liquid to a separate pot, leaving a half inch of liquid at the bottom of the crockpot. Cook pork for an additional hour. Turn off heat and use two forks to shred the pork.

In the separate pot with the cooking liquid, simmer the liquid on low heat until it has more than reduced by half of its liquid volume. It should be somewhat runnier than the barbecue sauce that went into it but thick enough that it isn't watery.

Take a half cup of the reduced sauce and pour it over the shredded pork. Stir to combine. 

If you made the hamburger buns from the previous post, split those in half and place a good amount of pulled pork on the bottom bun and cover it with the top bun. Enjoy!

TheFoodening Blog - pulled pork on a homemade bun

Note: If you don't have a crockpot or slow cooker, you can also use a dutch oven and bake the pork until tender for 4 hours at 325 F.