Pulled Pork!

Looking back at this first smoke I think it would have probably been better to start out with just one Boston Butt. But when you trying to get on the good side of your butcher coupled with the fact they are packed and sealed as pairs... I ended up with nearly 20lb's of pork for what was a essentially a party of two.

Step 1, Trim the fat cap.

I take that back, step 1 is actually make the rub

Once the rub has been made and the meat has been trimmed of excess fat, its time to massage your meat. For this first smoke I rubbed one with plain yellow mustard, and left the other plain before applying rub to both.

Wrap them up in saran wrap and throw them in the fridge over night. Be sure to remove these from the fridge at least an hour before you plan on putting them on the smoker.


8 hours later... its now 6 am... i'm tired... and time to light something on fire...

Do NOT use this many lit coals when starting this thing!!!! This was a big mistake and it ended up taking nearly 2 hours to get the temperature under control. You could get away with about 6 medium to large chunks of smoldering lump to get this thing slowly climbing to a rock solid 225*

This is why you foil the water pan, can you imagine scraping and scrubbing the baked on crispy bits from this thing?

After sleeping for 8 hours the Bone in Pork Shoulders are ready for some smoke.

3 hours in....

5 hours in, time for a spritz! apple juice.

7 hours in, time to foil.

9 hours, remove from Foil

11 Hours, time to finish on the smoker with no foil to firm up the bark

12 hours DONE! Foil one last time and rest the shoulder in a cooler for 2 hours!

Nom nom....

Bone slides right out

My first smoke ring, awww

Yum

enough munching time to pull

taste pretty damn good

One shoulder down, one to go

Time to eat, Kings Hawaiian Bread, Coleslaw just need some home made bbq sauce...

It was delicious to say the least...

What did I learn?

Use Less coals when starting the smoker, its much easier to raise the temperature than lower it.

Definitely use Mustard! it makes for a much better bark, and I will always use it on future butts.

Foiling... I have mixed feelings about foiling, I think it has its benefits and drawbacks like most things but ultimately I dont think I will do it again. Why? Well first of all it fucks up the bark and makes it all soggy, I like bark so that alone is enough to justify not doing it again. Secondly its a pain in the ass to do, you have to have help because the butts are smoking away in a 250* smoker trying to pick them up and foil them wearing nothing but latex gloves sucks, I cant even imagine doing it alone. third, its a pain in the ass.

The Rub was just mehh, nothing special it may have been the combination of woods I chose (apple and maple) next time I will try apple and hickory I think that will give it a more bbq'y flavor.

The bbq sauce ended up being AWESOME! the problem was it wasn't awesome until the second day. Fresh it was too ketchuppy for my liking but let me tell you after a day in the fridge for the flavors to more thoroughly saturate one another... it was awesome with a good kick too.