I have been smoking meats for a while now, and was recently given a marinade injector. I searched through a few forums, and found a few people really like mixing apple juice with Jack Daniels for their marinade for pork butts.
When doing this, do I cook off the alcohol first? Or should I just inject it the night before without cooking off the alcohol?
It really depends on what sort of end result you're trying to get.
If you don't reduce the alcohol before injecting it, you're going to end up with boozy pork. If this is what you want, go for it.
Otherwise, reduce the alcohol, mix in the apple juice, and then inject that. You could also try flaming the alcohol, which won't cook off as much alcohol, but can create other interesting flavors.
Just inject.
The subsequent heating will cook off the alcohol. Maybe a few molecules remain so if you are a religion that cannot have those you should cook it first.
I here humbly suggest that you will be paying extra for the name "Jack Daniels" but you can use any whisky for cooking with comparable results. If you have it on hand and are not drinking it very fast it makes sense to use what you have got. If you go thru whiskey reasonably fast you could get some cheap stuff for cooking. I used to keep some on hand for slow cooked beans.
Which would be delicious using the bone from the pork butt!
