Pork Belly Burnt Ends

Pork belly cubed, seasoned and smoked. The pork belly nuggets are then slathered in BBQ sauce, honey, beer and butter and smoked again to make pork belly burnt ends.

Pork Belly Burnt Ends? But I thought burnt ends are brisket? Besides, who wants something burnt in the first place?

Let’s do a little background here:

Is Pork Belly the Same as Burnt Ends?

Not always. For decades burnt ends were always made from brisket. And no, they are not burnt. They are called burnt because they are cooked twice and a little over cooked which means overly tender but not dry. When cooking a whole brisket, the flat is done before the point, so a lot of people pull the brisket when the flat is done and cube the point and put it back into the smoker until the meat is pillowy tender. The point is cooked twice. What makes pork belly into burnt ends is to cook them twice, like the brisket point

Now that the background is out of the way, let’s get after it.

Additionally, make sure to have your toothpicks ready and sit back for a photographic journey to flavortown.

I’ll explain that toothpick thing later.

Vindulge

First, I want to give a shout out to Vindulge.com because that was the inspiration for this pork belly burnt ends recipe.

You can check out Vindulge’s author, Mary, on Instagram.

Pork Belly Burnt Ends Ingredients:

• 1 full pork belly (approximately 10 lbs)
• 4 oz olive oil (divided)
• 4 oz BBQ rub (divided)
• 8 oz BBQ sauce (divided)
• 8 oz beer (divided)
• 6 oz honey (divided)
• 1 tsp fresh ground cinnamon (divided)
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• Toothpicks

Looks like bacon, right? Indeed, pork belly is just uncured bacon.

Initially, remove the grill grates from the smoker and crank it up to 250F. 

Trust me here, removing the grill grates will make things easier in a minute.

How to Prepare the Pork Belly Burnt Ends

Trim up any overly thick fat, although we left the thinner stuff on.

Thus, the thick stuff on this end had to go:

Dad forming a strip of fat into a fat flower on his finger:

For reference, this is the minimum you need to trim off.

Mary from Vindulge.com took it all off.

Totally a personal preference:

Then, slice that bad boy into couple inch cubes:

Sliced and ready for seasoning:

Use aluminum pans to really coat the soon to be pork belly with seasoning.

Put as many as you can in an aluminum pan although all 10 lbs won’t fit into one pan.

Accordingly, use as many pans as you need and drizzle with olive oil:

Next, slather the chunks of belly with your favorite BBQ rub:

Afterward, work the BBQ seasoning around to coat all size sides of the pork cubes with the oil and rub.

Then, place the cubes on those grill grates we removed earlier, fat side down:

It’s MUCH easier to place these nuggets on a cold grill grate than trying to slide them into a hot grill one at a time and not burn yourself. 

How to Grill Pork Belly Burnt Ends

Place the racks of the raw pork belly into a 250F pellet smoker:

Here are the pork belly burnt ends ready for the sauce, all mahogany and golden, after about 90 minutes in the smoker:

Combine the BBQ sauce, beer, honey, and cinnamon in the bottom of an aluminum pan and mix together well.

Then, add the pork belly burnt ends and drop the butter on top:

Once the butter is melted, really work the pork belly burnt ends around until completely coated.

Next, cover the pans in foil and put them back on the smoker.

Which begs the question:

Can You Overcook Pork Belly Burnt Ends?

You can overcook and dry out anything, although maybe the hardest thing to dry out is pork belly. Remember, that belly is what we cure to make bacon which means there is a ton of fat. And that’s what makes this cut of meat perfect for burnt ends. It’s not impossible to dry out pork belly, but it’s close 

How do we know when the Pork Belly Burnt Ends are done

This is the tricky part. See, trying to get the internal temp of 1 inch pork nuggets is hard with as small as they are. Accordingly, we recommend gauging the tenderness, not the temp. I know I always say cook to temp, but in this case, cook to tenderness. In short, one way to test to see if they are uber tender is the toothpick test. If a toothpick goes in and out of a pork belly burnt end like a hot knife through butter, then it passes the toothpick test.

Spot test a handful:

After the pork passes the toothpick test remove the foil from the top of the pan cook the belly a little longer.

Subsequently, this allows the sauce to thicken and take in some smoke flavor.

We’re talking 10-15 minutes here, tops. 

Plating

Finally, let’s plate the pork belly burnt ends.

There are a number of ways of serving these.

As a matter of fact, all you need to do is take the lid off the pan and hand out forks or toothpicks:

The funny thing about handing out toothpicks is that they have passed the toothpick test.

As a result, watch your guests try to pick them up and the burnt ends slide off the pick!!

Appetizer are served!

No matter how you serve them, pork belly burnt ends will be a hit

Pork Belly Burnt Ends Summary

But how do they taste? First, the meat absolutely melts in your mouth. It’s almost as if all you would need to do is crush the burnt ends on the roof of your mouth with your tongue to eat them. Second, the sauce is a combo of sweet and savory from the honey and BBQ sauce as well as velvety from the butter. Outstanding mouthfeel. In addition, you can make these up ahead of time and warm up the next day or weeks later after freezing. When we made these two pans, some friends/neighbors helped to scarf down one pan. The other is in my freezer right now!?!? #LuckyGuy

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

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Recipe Card

Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Pork Belly Burnt Ends

Pork belly burnt ends are cubed belly, smoked and then thrown into a pan of beer, butter, honey, and BBQ sauce and cooked more until uber tender and sweet!

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time3 hours hrs

Course: Appetizer, Finger Food

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Barbecue, BBQ, Finger Food, Grilling, Pork, Pork Belly

Keyword: Bacon, Barbecue, Barbecue Pork, BBQ, BBQ Pork, Burnt Ends, Burnt Ends Recipe, Finger Food, Grill, Grilling, Pellet Cooker, Pellet Grill, Pellet Smoker, Pork, Pork Belly, Pork Belly Burnt Ends, Pork Belly Burnts Ends Recipe, Pork Belly Recipe, Recipe, Smoked Pork

Servings: 12 People

Equipment

• toothpicks

Ingredients

• 1 Full pork belly approximately 10 lbs
• 4 ounces Olive oil divided
• 4 ounces Your favorite BBQ rub divided
• 8 ounces Your favorite BBQ sauce divided
• 8 ounces Beer
• 6 ounces Honey divided
• 1 teaspoon Fresh ground cinnamon divided
• 2 tablespoon Unsalted butter

Instructions

• Trim the fat off the back of the pork belly
• Slice the belly into two inch cubes
• Place the cubes in aluminum pans and hit with the oil and rub and work the cubes around until they are coated evenly
• Pull the grill grates out of the grill and spark it up to 300 degrees
• Place the soon to be pork belly burnt ends on the grill grates and then into the grill when it hits 300
• Smoke for about 2 hours
• Prepare the glaze in new pans by pouring in the BBQ sauce, beer, honey and the ground cinnamon and combine thoroughly
• Remove the pork belly cubes from the smoker and place in the pans with the slurry and top with the butter
• The warm pork belly burnt ends should melt the butter quickly and then mix the pork nuggets around in the sauce to coat entirely
• Cover the aluminum pans with foil and place back into the smoker until the pork belly passes the toothpick test (a toothpick slides in and out of the meat with no effort at all and comes out clean) which is about an hour to 90 minutes
• Remove from the smoker and serve

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

See Full Bio

BBQ Grilling

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This article was initially published on: July 10, 2017