# Pork rind troubles



## wayde01 (Aug 4, 2010)

Any have a guess at this. 

I am curing pork belly for 8 days in a dry brine. I smoke the belly. Next, pull off the rind, cut in small squares(aprx 2x2). Then cool, and deep fry. I can't get these suckers to poof.

Any help would be welcomed.


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## resqdoc (Apr 27, 2011)

I was always under the impression that pork rinds were made from the subcutaneous fat that was directly under the skin. It was cooled and then deep fried, where as pork cracklins were the actual skin that was hard boiled to soften the skin a little and then cooled, and deep fried.

The porkrinds you see in the grocery store are light and fluffy and melt in your mouth. Huge pockets of air, where as cracklins dont really have that. Smaller, more dense pockets and are chewey...more body to it.

Regardless, both are extremely tasty.

Explain your smoking process to me and your frying process.

Are you hot smoking or cold smoking?

Whats your temps and time?

Are you blanching the bellies like you would a frenchfry, or are you just going directly into hot oil?

How old is the oil that you are using?

One thought is that they might be too dry to poof up. I.E. - You may be over processing them by smoking them and drying them out.

Things "poof" when there is water inside and it gets quickly evaporated by immense heat, leaving little pockets of air. If done quickly, there is no time for these empty pockets to be replaced by hot oil, because there is steam forcing its way out. Water repels oil.

Just an idea - You can try either not smoking them, or if you do smoke them, maybe simmering them in a little water for maybe 5 to 10 minutes with a sachet of whatever flavors you want, or even some of the charred wood you smoked them with.

Pat them dry and throw them in the fridge for an hour or so, that way what ever liquid passed through the fat when it was being simmered will have to work twice as hard to escape, causing more expansion.

Try doing a blanch then hard fry and just a straight hard fry and see what you get.

Let me know how it works out for you.


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## gareth (Feb 3, 2011)

All of the above, but don't remove from the fridge until it's tacky or sticky, it's just a clear indication that the water is gone. The chinese pekin duck chefs use this trick.


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## thetincook (Jun 14, 2002)

You need to dry out the skin more if you want it puffy. There is a sweet spot of moisture.Try a two stage fry, one at a low temp to dry it out, one very high to poof. There is a pretty good segment on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe from the Discovery Channel where they show the process from start to finish for made from scratch pork rinds.

You want something like this 

Also read this: http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/10/27/puffed-snacks-1-wherefore-the-puff/#more-2360


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## resqdoc (Apr 27, 2011)

thetincook said:


> You need to dry out the skin more if you want it puffy. There is a sweet spot of moisture.Try a two stage fry, one at a low temp to dry it out, one very high to poof. There is a pretty good segment on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe from the Discovery Channel where they show the process from start to finish for made from scratch pork rinds.
> 
> You want something like this
> 
> Also read this: http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/10/27/puffed-snacks-1-wherefore-the-puff/#more-2360


Thats what I think of when I think of pork cracklins.

When I think pork rinds I think of this:


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## thetincook (Jun 14, 2002)

Lol, those are pork rinds before they have their final puffy fry. I posted that pic to show what they are supposed to look like when dry enough.


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## blueicus (Mar 16, 2005)

The pork rinds my coworker made were boiled for a couple of hours before they were dried. As others said frying puffy starches and proteins require a particular amount of moisture so yours may be too dry


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## cacioepepe (Apr 3, 2011)

This is how we used to do it:

- Take the raw skin and sous vide it for like 12 hours at 72 c.

- Remove, cool and scrape the fat off with a spoon until most the fat is removed.

- Cut the skin into desired shape.

- Place on a cooling rack and let it sit out for one day, or overnight.

- Fry those bitches at 360.

Since youre cooking the belly whole, just cut the skin off, scrape and dry. They MUST be dry. There's no need to blanch, simmer, etc.  Just make sure all you have is cooked skin that is bone dry and they will puff up like beauties.


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## joe b (May 22, 2011)

So skin the bellies before you smoke them. Simmer them in a 400 hotel pan on the flat top or in the oven at 350 while other stuff is in there. SImmer for a few hours or until you can almost pinch through the fat and skin with nominal pressure.

Remove skins and cool on rack, once cooled, scrape with a boning knife until you reach the bare skin with no fat. The skin has texture similar to a basketball when scraped sufficiently. At this point you can experiment with cutting them into different shapes, if you julienne them, they fry up looking like calamari.

Dry them completely, a food dehydrator is the most consistent way to make this happen. If you choose not to cut them, you can dry, then break them with a meat mallet to get that "perfectly un-uniform" look. Fry at 360.

Season with powdered vinegar and salt, or a mixture of other dried spices. I'm partial to a brown sugar, cumin, chili powder mix....aka bbq spice.


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