Pork crown roast: advice?

OK mes amies, here's my circumstance: I have a 6 lb pork crown roast (Thank you Mr. Costco!), that I've put a couple of hours of *very* cold smoke (<<100°F) on. I want to cook it for Sunday din. It's very lean, of course, waaaay too lean, as modern pork is, so I want to be absolutely guarded against overcooking it. Here's my plan:

Put it into a 500° oven for 30 mins; turn the heat down to 300° and wait until the thermometer registers 130°, at which point, pull it.

My questions are:

1) are my two time/temperature values sensible? If not, what would you suggest?

2) if my values are sensible, what would you predict to be the total cooking time? or, more operationally put, at what time would you begin taking the beast's temp?

This method is a first for me and, needless to say, I'm more than a bit anxious about it. I just *hate* modern pork... it's so, like, totally unforgiving.

TIA!

Geo

I might be inclined to flip the order of temperatures. Put it in at 250 or 300 until it hits 135, let it rest while the oven blasts up to 500, and then in for 15 minutes to get a crusty outside. My guess is you'll end up with ~145-150 degrees, which I think is about right.

As for how long it'll take at 250 or 300, I really don't know.. hopefully someone else has an idea. I'd assume about 90-120 minutes, but you'll really want to stick a probe thermometer in it.

Geo wrote:This method is a first for me and, needless to say, I'm more than a bit anxious about it. I just *hate* modern pork... it's so, like, totally unforgiving.

Geo,

A simple brine before the cold smoke will afford you a larger moist/juicy modern pork window. I tend to brine leaner cuts of "modern pork" no matter method of preparation.

Enjoy,
Gary

Tnx Gary, I probably should have done exactly that. But my rub, which I applied on Tuesday, had some salt in it, so I probably got some brining effect in any case.

I cold-smoked the roast for 8 hours on Thursday, using mostly mulberry. Yesterday, I scrubbed off the rub, and cooked it. Learned some things, too.

Although gleam suggested high temp phase at the end, every thing I could find on the web, inc. Cook's wanted me to do it first. So I did. 6-lb roast, 450°F for 30 mins, pulled it out, let the oven cool down to 325°F. Internal temp was 85°. It was gorgeously browned. I put it back in, got involved in something else, didn't check the temp for nearly an hour. Ooooops, 155°F. Pulled that sucker *immediately*, got dinner ready fast [spätzle, rotkohl, rahmsoß, citrus-beet salad] and we ate it.

A tiny bit dry. But incredibly succulent: smoky, garlicky, the outside crust was absolutely perfect. Five days of rub did a really good job.

Next time the oven goes down to 250°F, maybe lower. And I'll brine it before rubing it.

Any other suggestions Gary?

Geo

That looks delicious, nice work Geo.