This ain’t your average pulled pork. We’re taking a hulking bone-in pork leg, firing it over live charcoal on a rotisserie, and giving it a tropical makeover with pineapple, rum, and spice. Think smoky, juicy pork that’s been injected with flavour, slow-roasted ‘til it falls apart, then finished with a juicy pineapple rum sauce that soaks into every shred. Oh, and the crackling? It’s next-level. Dried for days, salted at the perfect moment, and blasted with fire until it shatters like porky glass. This is BBQ theatre with a tropical twist—ideal for feeding a crowd and turning heads while you do it.
Pineapple Express Pulled Pork (With Shatter-Crisp Crackling)
Ingredients
For the Injection Marinade:
For the Finishing Sauce:
For the Pork Prep:
Instructions
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Stage 1: Safe Defrosting
If frozen, defrost your pork leg in the fridge – not on the counter, not in a bucket, just cold and slow. Budget around 24 hours per 2.5kg. For a beastly 9kg leg, you're looking at 4 full days. Once it’s thawed, you’ve got a 5-day window to cook it. -
Stage 2: Skin Drying Time
After defrosting, unwrap the pork and stick it on a wire rack in a tray—skin side up. Leave it uncovered in the fridge for at least 2 days. This turns your fridge into a mini dry-aging zone and tightens up that skin for premium crackle. -
Stage 3: Injecting the Flavour
Whisk all your injection marinade ingredients together until smooth. Use a meat injector to plunge that tropical rum-pineapple elixir deep into the thickest parts of the pork (avoiding the skin). Do this the day before the cook. -
Stage 4: Salt That Skin
On cook day morning, pat the skin bone-dry. Score it with a sharp blade if it hasn’t been done already—cut through the skin and fat, but not the meat. Rub in sea salt generously. If you’re feeling cheeky, add a touch of baking powder to help puff up that crackling. -
Stage 5: Fire Up That Rotisserie
Load up your charcoal BBQ with a solid bed of fuel and get it burning until the coals are white-hot. Skewer the pork leg onto your rotisserie spit and get it spinning close to the heat for the first 30 minutes. This is when the magic of blistered crackling happens. -
Stage 6: Slow Roast Time
Once the crackling starts doing its thing, shift the heat to indirect—either by raising the spit or banking the coals. Keep it rotating gently for 5–6 hours, topping up the fire as needed. Your target internal temp is 85–90°C in the thickest part. -
Stage 7: Rest and Recharge
When you hit that temp, pull the pork and tent it loosely with foil. Let it rest for 30–45 minutes. It’s not just downtime—it’s crucial. Juices reabsorb, fat melts further, and you get ready for the pull.
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Stage 8: Pulling and Juicing
While the pork rests, simmer your finishing sauce ingredients in a pan for 15–20 minutes. Once the pork is cool enough to handle, shred it into a tray and drizzle the warm sauce bit by bit, mixing gently. Stop when it’s juicy but not swimming. -
Stage 9: Crackling Crown
Now for the finale. Break up that blistered crackling into rough shards and scatter it over the pulled pork like crispy confetti. Want to get flash? Drizzle a bit of pineapple-rum reduction over the top for that glossy finish.
Equipment
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Note
Don’t skip the drying phase – it’s the key to crackling that shatters.
You can add a dry rub to the meat side if you fancy, but keep the skin clean.
This pork makes incredible leftovers – tacos, buns, rice bowls… get creative.
Want a glaze for extra wow? Reduce pineapple juice and rum until syrupy, brush it over just before serving.
