Oktoberfest sous-vide pork knuckles in the HLT - Finishing?

[mr_wibble]

We're having a family octoberbest on the 18th. Yes I know it should be last week of September.

Anyway, I'm cooking 12 pork knuckles in my HLT, temperature controlled at 75°C for 8 hours, and then finishing them in a wood-fired pizza oven.

I used the sous-vide details as per this:
Ref: http://www.codlo.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-sous-vide-time-temperature

See "Traditional Style" in the bottom-right.

The butcher, George at Toukley, NSW (who is awesome BTW) is vacuum packing each knuckle for me.

So I cooked two of them last night as a test-run.

I pulled them straight out of the HLT after 8 hours, debagged, and into a 250°C domestic oven until crackling formed.
After 1/2 hour I pulled them out of the oven. They were pretty good, but I want to make them better.

I did not get very good crackling, and the meat was a little bland.

After discussing this with SWMBO, we reckoned that we should score the skin a bit (after sous-cookin) and rub with oil, then salt.
But the pizza oven will probably be a fair bit hotter than my (shiphouse) domestic oven.

I'm looking for advice to get some nice crackling / finishing on these.

I'm felling a bit of pressure to get it perfect, since I'm cooking the meat for 12 people, and it's not exactly cheap cuts.

cheers,
-Wibble

 

[mr_wibble]

Ok, so this went pretty well.


The knuckles were cooked in batches of 6, since I was concerned about putting so many in at once and getting even cooking if they bunched up.
Because of this, they were cooked in two batches: 13:30 to 21:30 and 21:30 to 06:00 - so the 2nd batch got an extra half hour. They were laid out on the baking trays, and refrigerated straight from the water bath.

As I unpacked them onto the trays, I cross-scored the skin to help crackling formation.



They actually looked fairly average coming out of their pouches, didn't smell so hot either. No worse than any boiled meat I'd warrant, but not particularly pleasant.

Around lunchtime that day, we rubbed them with a generous amount of olive oil, and sprinkled with salt. Then they went into a ~300C wood-fired oven for 45 mins, but checked every 15 mins.



They turned out nice. The wood-fired oven had given them a subtle smoky flavour, and the pork skin had crackled OK. I'm not so much into crackling, but others that are said it was good.



To be honest it was a fairly simple process, easy even.
I would like to have a go at cooking a few other things this way.

 

[Dae Tripper]

My hat goes off to you Mr Wibble. That looks delicious!

I also had a Oktoberfest party on the 18th and was super awesome, less pork knuckle. I think I will have to do knuckle or trotter next time as this was my first Oktoberfest and plan to make it an annual event.

 

[Grott]

They look just yum. Can you post?

 

[mr_wibble]

They look just yum. Can you post?

The posite asked me not to, it's something about dogs apparently.

 

[djar007]

Nice work mate. Hard to get them crisp after sous vide. But looks like they turned out great.

 

[scon]

You might want to chuck them in an fridge on a rack for 12 hours or so before putting them in the oven so they dry properly first. Would likely help with the crackling formation.