My pork rinds won't puff!

Question

I was following the recipe here:

How do you make pork rinds?

and ran into a situation. When I get pork rinds from the store, they are beautiful and puffy like a Funyun. I followed this recipe exactly and am left with deflated rinds!

Can anyone help?

Answer 1

That recipe doesn't seem right to me

Trim excess fat off with a knife, using boiling water will toughen the skin

Keeping your rind in easy to handle oven sized slabs. Pre cut it with a very sharp knife so it can be pulled part when done. Cut 5 mm to 10 mm wide strips, but not quite end to end

You can use a scalpel, craft knife, or "Stanley" knife to do this. Use a steel ruler too!

It doesn't need to be cut all the way through though, as it will snap off once fully cooked, but this can be messy

Rub with salt. I always lightly oil first too, but some people don't like that. Rub with spices if required

Cook in your oven as hot as it will go on fan mode. If the oven steams up open the door a little

It should look something like this when done (these aren't great)

Go as long as you dare. The longer the better. But be warned there is a very small window between perfect and on fire :-)

Answer 2

The ones in the store are deep fried not baked in a oven. I just finished my first batch and even the wife and dogs liked them.

I started with a pork belly because I am making some bacon:

1. Trim the skin from the belly, cut off most of the fat
2. Put two big slabs in a pot and boil for about 2 hours, let it cool, then scrape off some of the remaining fat
3. Cut into strips (the bigger they are the bigger the end product, so be careful)
4. Bake them in the oven at 350 for about 2 hours
5. Deep fry them in very hot lard (or other high temperture oil) until they pop open
6. Let them brown and remove

They will pop quickly. You could season them while they are in the oven, but I have only used salt at the end while they were hot.