We take the pork collar, carved into pork steaks, and then season with salt and two sets of BBQ seasoning and then refrigerated for 2 hours. This is essentially dry brining. The pork collar is then cooked via indirect grilling (two zone grilling) on a charcoal grill with cherry wood before the collars get seared to get that flavor char. This is essentially the reverse sear method. The pork collar is then sauced and smoked a little more to thicken that sauce. A dusting of that BBQ seasoning as garnish, and a little flavor pop, completes the saucy, reverse sear pork collar.
If these look like pork steaks it’s because the pork collar is a tubular piece of meat in the pork shoulder. The pork collar is the most flavorful, and tender part of the shoulder. The pork collar contains what competition grillers call the “Money Muscle” because that part of the shoulder turns into prize money if cooked right. It might not be easy to find a butcher that will separate out the pork collar for you. I doubt you will find this at your local grocery store. I had to head to Korte Meats in Highland, Illinois to get these beauties, and it was well worth the drive.
We are huge fans of pork steaks in general, which is just the pork shoulder carved into steaks. Pork collar is the next step up above pork steaks. While finding pork collars isn’t easy, pork steaks are much easier because they just take a pork shoulder and run it through the band saw. If you want to go down the pork steak rabbit hole, let me help:
Saucy, Reverse Sear Pork Collar Ingredients
- 4 pork collar steaks (a pork collar sliced into one inch thick steaks)
- Coarse salt
- Your favorite pork BBQ rub – I used a combo of two of my favorites
- Your favorite BBQ sauce
Season the pork collar with coarse salt and your favorite BBQ rub(s):
Repeat the seasoning on the other side and take the edges and dab them in the excess seasoning on the cutting board to completely season the pork collar:
Then place the seasoned collars onto a cookie cooling rack:
I set the cookie cooling rack in a disposable aluminum pan:
And into the fridge for 2-12 hours. In this case, we went for 2 hours:
Don’t brine beyond 12 hours, or it will start curing the pork and the meat will have the consistency of ham.
The thinking here is that the seasoning will enter the cells of the meat with the help of the salt that will draw out some moisture from the meat and then the salt solution will force liquid from the solution into the cells of the pork. We did a side by side, dry brine vs no dry brine experiment with briskets recently.
While the collars dry brine, go prepare the grill
What is the Reverse Sear Method?
Basically, flip the sear then cook indirect method upside down. Instead of throwing cold meat over hot coals and drying out the outside of the meat, we bring the meat up slowly by cooking it low and slow and imbue a lot of smoke flavor. Then, once we get 10F-20F short of the final temperature, sear the meat to get a nice flavor crust and bring that meat up the final 10F-20F degrees which finishes the dish.
Prep the Cooker
Set up a charcoal grill (or gas grill) with hot coals (or hot burner) on one side and a couple chunks of smoke wood over the direct heat:
The pork collars in the pic above, are over the cool side of the grill while the far side has a pile of hot coals and a couple chunks of cherry wood. Target temp inside the grill is 300F (+/-25F)
After about 45 minutes our internal temp on the pork collars is 148F:
After an hour and a half and our pork collars are darkening compared to a similar picture above:
Our temps have only gone up to 158F in 45 minutes:
Things were moving a little slower than I expected. The extra fat and collagen these things have means slow cooking times. So I moved them closer to the fire to speed things up a bit:
After about 2.5 hours, my pork collar is sitting at 174F:
For pork steaks, or in this case pork collar, we need to take the internal temp north of 180F to be tender. 190F is even better
So now is the time to get that sear of the reverse sear method. Make sure the hot side of the grill is super hot. Particularly 500F or higher.
If you need to add coals or crank up the heat in some way, remove the pork collar from the grill while that is happening. The last thing we want is for the collars to continue to cook while that hot side gets super hot.
Place the pork collar right over the top of the hot coals (hot burner):
‘
We are just looking for some char on both sides:
These are essentially done at this point. You could serve them right here, no sauce:
But we are feeling saucy, oh so saucy:
Once both sides of the pork collar are sauced, close the lid and let the sauce thicken. This should take at most 10 minutes.
Then remove from the grill and allow to rest for a few minutes. Also, I highly recommend dusting with a little more of that BBQ rub for both appearance and a little flavor pop:
And the obligatory lake view shots of the pork collar:
You can eat these like a steak:
Here’s a close up:
‘
The other option is to slap one of these onto a bun with a pile of coleslaw on top and call it heaven on a bun. Sorry, no pics of that.
Saucy, Reverse Sear Pork Collar Summary
If you are a pork steak fan, this is the next level up. If you aren’t a pork steak fan, then run, don’t walk, to you local meat cutter and get some ordered. Once you make those a couple times, upgrade to these. I mean, wow! WOW! That is all. Juicy, smoky, saucy, and super tender.
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Saucy, Reverse Sear Pork Collar
Pork collar from the pork shoulder, carved into steaks, seasoned and grilled indirect before searing and saucing to make saucy reverse sear pork collar
Course Barbecue, BBQ, Entree, Main Course
Cuisine American, American Fare, Barbecue, BBQ, Grilling, North American, Pork, Traditional American
Keyword Barbecue, Barbecue Sauce, BBQ, BBQ Rub, BBQ Sauce, BBQ Seasoning, Charcoal, Charcoal Grill, Cherry Wood, Dry Brine, Indirect Grilling, Pork Collar, reverse sear, Reverse Sear Method, Reverse Sear Pork Collar, Saucy, Two Zone Grilling
Prep Time 2 hours hours
Cook Time 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes
Resting Time 5 minutes minutes
Season the pork collars with salt and your favorite BBQ rub on the tops, bottoms and around the skinny edge. Place the collars on a cookie cooling rack and then into a disposable aluminum pan and set in the fridge for 2-12 hours to dry brine.
Prepare the charcoal grill for two zone grilling (indirect grilling) with hot coals and smoke wood on one side and nothing on the other. Target temperature inside the grill is 300F (+/-25F). Place the dry brined pork collar on the side with no direct heat and close the lid.
You might need to move the pork closer or farther from the heat, or re-arrange from time to time so the farther ones are closer and vice versa. It took about 2.5 hours for the pork collar to hit 170F-180F.
Once the pork collar hits 170F-180F, stoke up the hot side of the grill to above 500F and sear the collars. Just get some quick char on both sides.
Then move the pork back to the side with no direct heat and slather in BBQ sauce
Once the BBQ sauce has thickened up a bit, remove from the heat, dust with a little extra BBQ seasoning for garnish and an extra flavor pop and allow to rest for a few minutes
Slice and serve, or slap on a bun with a pile of cole slaw
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