Pork, over a barrel

Pulled pork is one of my favorite, and most frustrating, experiences. I long ago abandoned the tepid cue that comes out of smoke shacks both makeshift and corporate. The quality of meat is usually bad, and it is usually disguised by saucy squirts of overpowered bbq sauce. These are jars of high fructose corn syrup with pepper flakes and liquid smoke, and they serve to disguise bad meat, not to supplement flavor.

But when I cook good pork shoulder at home, the result is usually frustrating as well. For starters, I have a hard time getting the internal temperature to 190 degrees. The best I've been able to achieve is just a few ticks upward of 160. But because at that point the pork has been in 14 plus hours, I usually give up and pull it, sweat it for a few hours, and then pull it anyway.

But I have now triple-threated my pork shoulder with good results.

brined, kneaded, and basted

 The first step is to brine the meat. While I had once done this with pork shoulder, I had never repeated it. Why not do it? I made up a basic brine from Charred & Scruffed and brined the meat. The brine is essentially water and apple juice with salt, lemons, sugar, garlic, red pepper, and whole peppercorns. You bring it to a boil, chill it overnight, and then pop the pork in the morning of grilling.

I pulled the pork out of the brine about two hours before starting the grill and let it warm up to room temperature. Then I rubbed it with a simple rub--salt, garlic salt, pepper, cayenne. Frankly, the rub could have been more imaginative. Maybe a dusting with smoked paprika, or even nutmeg. Depends on which way you want to go to balance the spice. And note to self--could have used more spice.

230, all day and all night

 Now the meat is ready to go on. So I put the plate setter in the egg, dropped in a foil pan to catch the drippings, filled the foil can with apple sauce, and commenced smoking the pork. I combined hickory chunks with the charcoal. It's the easiest go-to wood. I let it smoke for two hours first at low heat and then let it rise to 230. At the two hour mark, I started the basting. Using an herb brush (sage and rosemary and oregano and thyme), I piled on southern style baste at one hour intervals for the next six hours.

The temperature kept pretty normal, although it was down quite a bit when I picked it up in the morning. After adding more charcoal, I cooked it another two hours. Total cook time: 14 hours and thirty minutes for two boneless Boston butts, weight 15 pounds.

The pork under the lights

But this wasn't the end of the story. This is when it gets interesting. First off, I let the pork sit in the pan under foil cover for another eight hours. This was a long time, and frankly was determined more by my schedule than by any premediated plan on my part. But letting the meat rest is certainly important. Then I pulled the pork. This took a long time, as it turns out that fifteen pounds of pork is a lot of pork. when the pork was entirely pulled, I added the reserve baste. I know, I didn't mention that I reserved any of the baste, but I did. Half of it in fact. I tossed it with the meat.

The pork, at rest

And then, I salted the meat. I have to admit, at this point I wish I had a good finishing salt, like a lime coriander salt. But I didn't. Boo. Hoo.

I'm rambling.

Back to the pork. I put the pork in the oven, under foil, at 400 degrees for forty-five minutes to reheat. At this point, the baste melted, the fat rendered, the salt did its magic, and the pork turned out brilliantly. Beautiful bark. Wonderful smoke ring. Succulent pig.

Pulled!

I do have a few tweaks for next time. I will go ahead and wrap the butts in foil after the eight hour mark. I will also cook it fat side up. I usually avoid this because I don't want the actual barked pork touching the grill, but I need to get over that little problem, especially as I baste. I can always grab the butt, turn it, baste it, and then put it back in place. And I'm going to go ahead and make that lime coriander salt. I also need a vinegar based bbq sauce. I've never made one successfully. Too much tomato paste in my ghost pepper sauce. It's a good sauce, don't get me wrong. But with this kind of meat, there really is no need for sauce at all.