Earl Cooks Pork Butt Burnt Ends

One of the big buzz phrases in the barbecue world these days is "Burnt Ends" Like many restaurant favorites, these started as the parts of the smoked brisket that were once considered to be unsellable, so the restaurant employees got to eat them. They came from the fattier "point" cut of the brisket.

I have never had brisket burnt ends. Now they are popular, thay are also expensive. I don't cook whole briskets, so I never have the trimmings left over. I found several recipes called "poor man's burnt ends" that used other meats and sounded just as good. Some used pork belly, some used roast beef, but the one that struck me was pork roast. That is what I decided to go with. I had a beautiful half of a pork shoulder smoked by Capt. Len's BBQ, a nearly perfect place to start.

I cut the pork into about 3/4-1" cubes and placed them in and disposable aluminum roasting pan and coated them with 2 kinds of sauce. Normally, I wouldn't need sauce for this tasty pork, but burnt ends NEED sugar to caramelize and, well, burn. I added a store brand hickory BBQ sauce and a locally produced Smoky Bacon sauce.
Now for the roasting. Since the pork was fully cooked and smoke I had only to heat it through and caramelize the sugars in th sauces giving them the burnt look and crunch. I started wit the oven at 350℉ for about 20 minutes. Then I changed it to cook from above (broil setting) at the same temperature for another 20 minutes.

They turned out great! This was my first attempt and some chunks were a bit overly crunchy, almost truly burnt. But they were still very tasty.

Results & Conclusions and Notes:

This was very much woth it and helped by the excellent smoked pork from Capt. Len's BBQ
Capt. Len's BBQ - Just Follow the Smoke!