Shredding Proteins: A Guide to Efficiently Cooking & Shredding Pork, Beef, and Chicken
Cut protein into 3-4” pieces to cook faster and shred easier.
The most important aspect is to get the internal temperature of the product up to 185° - 190° F and hold it there for at least 30 minutes. The smaller the piece of protein, the faster it will reach the desired internal temperature. Practice Step Cooking Step cooking is the process of slowly increasing the cook temperature over a period of time to retain purge. Rather than starting the cook process at 190° F, start the process at 145° F and work up to 190° F over the course of 1-3 hours.
Slowly work up to the final cook temperature to retain moisture and purge.
Step cooking prevents protein from giving up outside moisture too quickly and retains a greater amount of purge. It also helps prevent the outside from getting “mushy”.
Pork Cooking Methods Pork cuts, whether butts, loins, coushins, bellies or other cuts, respond about the same in the cooking process. It doesn’t matter what cut you use; the main factor is to cut your prod- uct down to 3 or 4 inches tall to increase the efficiency of the cooking process. The best method is to load cook-in-bags with product and spices, and then flatten the bags so product is no more than 4 inches tall. Steam cook (or as high of humidity as possible) the product in a basic cook cycle:
1. Cook at 145° F for one hour 2. Cook at 165° F for one hour 3. Cook at 185° F for one hour 4. Cook at 190° F until internal temperature reaches at least 180° F. 5. Hold at that temperature for one hour
Follow these tips for producing a hand pulled pork shred.
This process will produce a nice, consistent shred of your pork cut. If the product shreds too fine, cut back the time on the last cooking step. If the product shreds too coarse, add more time to the last cooking step. Cook-in-bag is not required; however, best practice dictates wrapping the product in foil for the majority of the cooking process to retain moisture, and then take out to smoke for last half hour.
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