Marinating pork

Improvolone

I've got some pork spare ribs I'm going to slow cook in my crock pot tomorrow with a home made BBQ sauce. Should I bother marinating it before hand? Over night? It's not like I don't have the time.
The BBQ sauce had an apple cider vinegar base, will the vingear mariating for so long do the bad kind of damage (the kind that doesn't make it succulent and tasty)?

Thegreatcow

Actually if you're going to be doing pork ribs you'll want to cook them in the crockpot and then add the barbecue sauce in the final 30 min-1 hour of cooking. This mainly has to do with that with the long cook times involved in crock pot cooking, your sauce is going to break down and taste pretty damn awful after 7 hours in there. Here's what I recommend actually if you're looking for really juicy succulent ribs.

Now you'll notice this prep is a bit involved so you may have to start it the night before, especially if you're using a crockpot, but I leave it up to you to decide.

Take the rack of ribs and set aside. Trim or cut them to appropriate sized racks to fit into your crockpot.

Prepare another pot large enough to hold the ribs and a brine (this is assuming somewhere around a 3-5lb rack of ribs)

Use a basic brine that I outlined in the sticky above:

THE BASIC BRINE

1 Gallon/4 Liters Water
1 cup/225 grams Kosher Salt
½ cup/125 grams Sugar

Optional: Additional Seasonings

Here you can also add any other spices or flavorings that you normally eat with pork. Since I'm not sure what spices you like here are some recommendations that complement pork well, usually a teaspoon of each is enough for the brine to impart the flavor into the ribs:

GENERAL ADDITIONS

Aromatic Vegetables (Carrots/Onions/Green Onions/Celery all roughly chopped)
Ginger
Garlic
Whole or Cracked Pepper
Any mix of dried or fresh herbs like Parsley, Thyme, Rosemary, Basil, etc

PORK SEASONINGS

Any of the above, including
Sage
Garlic
Juniper Berries
Bay Leaves
Coriander seeds
Brown Sugar
Molasses

And there you go! Combine whatever ingredients you like into the pot and bring the brine to a simmer. Once all the salt and sugar has dissolved, bring the brine back down to room temperature.

Add the rack of ribs to the brine. Make sure they're completely submerged and place the pot into your fridge for about 6-8 hours. Depending on whether you're using Baby-Back ribs or thick Country-Style ribs, you may have to adjust your brining time. The thicker and meatier the rib, the longer you can safely brine them. Once the brining is complete, remove the ribs from the brine and set aside.

Prep your crockpot for low cooking. Take one large onion and roughly chop it into large chunks. Lay the chunks on the bottom of the crock pot and between the layers of ribs depending on how big your crock pot is you may have to mix it up a bit so make sure they're evenly dispersed through the meat. Dash in some salt and pepper if you like.

Add about a 1/4 cup of water to the pot and seal it. Set to low heat and cook for about 7 hours for 3lbs of ribs, longer if you have larger cuts or more meat. Once the meat is cooked, take whatever barbecue sauce you're going to be using and add it directly to the pot in the final 30min-1 hour of cooking. Set your crockpot to its high setting and let it cook to fully absorb the sauce. Once done, remove and serve.

There ya go, you'll get immaculately tender ribs from the brining and the flavors will be more thoroughly distributed through the meat leading to a wonderful set of ribs whatever cut they may be.

However if you are pressed for time, not a problem, you can skip the brining step and add some dried herbs of your choosing to the crockpot along with the chopped onion (and garlic if you're feeling garlicky with your ribs) and water. Simply cook the ribs as outlined above, first without the barbecue sauce, and then add the sauce in the final hour of cooking. Just make sure to add whatever herbs and spices you want before you start the long cooking period, this will really be the only opportunity for the meat to absorb flavor directly into the meat so make sure you use whatever spices you like at this point.

Good luck!

Improvolone

Fucking. Awesome.
Thank you. I've never brined before and forgot completely about it.
This is going to be awesome.

Djeet

If you're not married to do it in a crock pot check out Alton's recipe for ribs. That's how I do it when I don't want to smoke them. It wouldn't be a bad idea to track down the episode and watch it, there are a few good tips there not in the written recipe (such as ways to minimize the risk of burning things when you're finishing under the broiler, and checking for doneness).

Remember to make sure you remove the membrane before you start your rub/marinade.

SammyF

As a general rule of thumb you don't marinate pork, at least in my experience. Braising it is a better way to go -- "braising" being from the French word for cooking something in an acidic liquid with a combination of high heat for a short duration followed by low heat for a long duration. Okay, that's probably not actually what the French root means, I don't do French.

Pork can be a tougher meat than chicken or even some cuts of beef, and slow-cooking pork is an ideal way to soften it up. Braising is my favorite methodology because the pork picks up some of the flavor of the juice -- the brine mentioned earlier is just such a braising liquid, although when I braise pork I usually use a combination of an alcohol and a fruit. Wine and tart cherries? Yeah, best thing ever to braise pork with, in my opinion. The other alternative is usually slow-roasting. North Carolina-style pulled pork barbeque is an example of this -- you turn the meat slowly over a flame for a long time until the meat loosens up enough to start falling away from the bone. Once it's off, you start saucing. But even there, in the most flavorful of all pork dishes, you don't actually marinade beforehand. You're either dry-rubbing into the meat or saucing as it comes away right before eating.

God I want to eat a pig right now.

Arrath

Thegreatcow wrote: »

...Good luck!

You are a God.