BBQed Pulled Pork

If you're looking for a real treat and have access to a smoker (or a way to maintain low temperatures for a long period of time and impart wood smoke), BBQing a pork shoulder is an easy and practically foolproof way to enjoy delicious food.

The obvious first step is to purchase your meat. You'll want to buy a bone in pork shoulder blade roast, typically called a Boston butt. When deciding how much meat to purchase, figuring one pound per person is a good rule of thumb. For this post, I had 8 adults and 4 kids (2 - 3 years old) so I bought a shoulder that weighed a little less than 9 pounds.

This photo shows the fat cap of the shoulder that should be placed up when smoking this cut of meat. BBQing with the fat cap on top allows the melting fat to trickle down to the meat keeping it moist and delicious.

Here's the bottom of the shoulder.

The night before you plan to BBQ this cheap cut of meat, you'll want to rinse and dry it, then cover it all over with a healthy dose of dry rub. You can use any rub really, so I won't go into the rub recipe I used. However, here's a picture of the rub before I mixed it all up.

After you've covered the butt with plenty of dry rub, be sure you have some left over to apply more right before the meat is smoked. If you don't have enough rub left over, buy or make more. Also, if you want to add some of the dry rub mixture to your mopping sauce or water pan (recommended), save some for that too.

Here's the butt after I applied the rub.

Next, wrap this hunk of meat in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to absorb the rub's flavor. Don't keep the meat in a metal pan or cover it in foil. Notice I have the meat on a ceramic plate and it's covered with plastic wrap.

About an hour before you plan to BBQ, take the meat out of the fridge and uncover it. Sprinkle it with more rub and fire up the smoker so it's at ~210 F.

After the meat has sat out uncovered for about an hour, put it in the smoker for ~2 hours per pound, until the meat reaches 200 F. I used hickory chips for the first 2 hours; some folks like more smoke and some like less.

Once the meat has reached 200 F, take it out and let it rest for ~30 minutes. This one cooked for ~18 hours (remember I had a shoulder that was almost 9 pounds) and came out perfect!

Once the meat has rested for ~30 minutes, start shredding and serve!

If you have any questions (this is very high-level) please feel free to comment and I'll answer them.

tIC