This is my favorite way to make pork roast: APPLE CIDER BRINED PORK ROAST 3 cups apple cider 3 cups water 1 bay leaf 1/4 cup salt 1 tbls black peppercorns 1 tbls coriander seeds 1 2 lb. Pork loin, trimmed 2 cups cider 1 � tsp chopped fresh rosemary 1 � tsp chopped fresh sage 1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper Combine the first 6 ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until salt dissolves. Remove from heat, cool, and pour into a Ziploc bag or container big enough to hold the pork loin. Add pork, seal and let marinate 8 hours or overnight. Preheat oven to 350, bring 2 cups cider to a boil over medium high heat. Boil until cider is thickened and reduced to � cup, about 15 minutes. Set aside. Remove pork from bag or container and discard brine. Place pork on broiler pan or baking dish and lightly coat with cooking spray. Sprinkle with remaining herbs and bake about 1 hour, until pork is done, basting twice with the reduced cider in the last 20 minutes of baking. Remove from oven, baste with remaining cider reduction. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing. Serves 8 200 calories per 4 oz. Serving, 6 grams fat Annie

I often use a slow cooker to cook a pork roast while I'm at work. More 'simmering' than boiling. The brand I use is a West Bend in which the pot can be removed from the heating element and used on the stove. Here's what I do: put a quart of cheap chicken stock in the pot, add a healthy amount of garlic and a good squirt of sriracha. Bring that to a boil on the stovetop, add the pork roast, return to a boil and then put the pot on the slow cooker's heating element and allow it to simmer for hours. After a few hours you have some juicy tasty fall-off-the-bone pork, with much of the fat simmered off and the rest of the fat easily separatable from the meat. Is it as good as Marcella Hazan's Pork Loin braised in Milk? No. Is it as good as oven roasted pork roast? No. But for the effort expended, it's pretty darn good. I'll often come home for lunch, start this dish, and let it simmer away until I come home after work. The leftovers make great sandwiches.

Yup, the cooking times are overkill. I usually brine overnight in the fridge. But no brine will help moisture if cooked so long. I'm guessing you might end up with falling off the bone dry shreads in a wet broth. (if baking covered like a braise). Smoking one day, serving the next?. Smoke day one, chill, re-heat to serve. Shave some hours off. And they know this will be very different than the typical grocery spiral ham? Have they had fresh smoked ham before? I know it is hard for some, the first time, to wrap their heads around the outcome, convinced it will be a 'fresh' home smoked cooked ham, just much better than store bought spiral. It is not at all similar to the salty firm pink cured grocery spiral hams. Ask me how i know, haha. I knew i would not get a 'cured' ham the first time i smoked one, but i sorta expected slightly on the way to the BlackForest ham you get in a deli slice.

Elery agrees with Ricky, and says that the pork must be 195F to 200F before it actually "pulls" easily and is tender. We usually do ours in the Nesco, starting at 325F and going lower if time allows. Long slow cooking melts fat and collagen and gives it that pull-apart tender texture without drying it out. A bit of liquid is used in the bottom of the roaster, usually water but sometimes apple or pineapple juice if I'm going to add a sweeter BBQ sauce, or chicken stock if I'm going strictly savory, Elery used to use beer, it depends on the flavor you're going for. Sometimes we just shred the meat into the liquid if we're trying to keep the meat moist for serving as-is. A 9 pounder would take me most of the day, 6-8 hours, but it can easily be kept warm if it cooks more quickly than you expect. Annie