smoked pulled pork

low and slow smoked pulled pork shoulder

Pulled pork seems to pop up everywhere these days. From the traditional smokehouses and barbecue joints to fast food chains and dare I say it, supermarkets. It’s found in burgers, on pizzas, in subs and even in a packet off the shelf. Unfortunately, most of these are a poor rep for how pulled pork should taste and it’s usually drowning in an overly sweet sauce.

Pork shoulders are relatively inexpensive and like most of the bigger cuts require a long, slow cook to break down all the collagens in the meat. This is when the magic starts to happen. The collagen turns to gelatin making it flavoursome and juicy. A good dosage of smoke doesn’t hurt either.

A great way to enhance the flavour and moisture of pork shoulders, and other low and slow cuts, is dry brining. This process involves salting the meat in advance of cooking allowing the salt to penetrate, loosening up the proteins enabling them to hold moisture and resulting in a more flavourful and juicy cut of meat.

ingredients

• Bone-in Pork Shoulder, aka the Boston Butt 4 – 5kg
• Your favourite pork rub, we like Lane’s BBQ Signature Rub
• Mayonnaise or mustard

directions

1. Trim up any dangly bits on the meat leaving you with a nice square shaped piece. If required, trim the fat cap down to about 5mm thick. Lightly score the fat in a crosshatch pattern. This will help the salt in the rub find it’s way into the meat.
2. Slather the pork with a light coating of mayo or mustard and liberally apply the rub. Ideally do this 24 – 36 hours in advance allowing the salt to penetrate into the meat.
3. Fire up your cooker aiming for around the 275f/135c mark. Pork shoulders are quite forgiving so if you push the temperature closer to 300f/150c no big deal.
4. If you’re cooking over charcoal add 3 chunks of your preferred wood to the coals and then add the pork.
5. Cook until the internal temperature of the meat reaches around 170f/77c. At this point the bark should be well formed, darkish brown. You now have a decision to make… to wrap or not to wrap.*
6. Either way, cook until the internal temperature reaches around the 195f/90c mark and start feeling for doneness using your trusty meat thermometer. If it probes with little resistance it’s done. This usually happens in the 195f/90c to 203f/95c range.
7. If you’ve persisted through the stall without wrapping then wrap after you take it off the grill. Ideally allow the meat to rest for at least two hours. You can do this in a couple of ways – in an oven at 170f/77c or wrapping the already wrapped meat in towels and into an esky.
8. Now comes the fun part, besides eating it of course… pulling the pork. Using heatproof gloves, meat claws or a couple of forks start shredding the meat.
9. Depending on how you plan to serve the pork (the options are endless) you can add a little barbecue sauce and mix it through. Pork isn’t as rich as beef so sometimes it needs a little kick along. Here’s some of our BBQ sauce ideas.

Enjoy your smoked pulled pork!

*When cooking those big, tough, low and slow cuts you have the option of wrapping, in foil or butcher’s paper. This is done for a couple of reasons:

1. To avoid ‘the stall’. When cooking low and slow (usually 275f/135c or less) the meat will hit a certain temperature, usually somewhere between 160f/71c to 170f/77c and sit at that temperature for hours as the meat ‘sweats’ and cools. One way to avoid the stall is to wrap the meat tightly in foil or butcher’s paper.
2. To keep the meat moist. As well as being wrapped in the foil the meat is spritzed with a liquid such as apple juice, apple cider vinegar or even water. The downside to this technique is that the liquid and steam will soften the bark and potentially you will lose some of it so work carefully when wrapping and unwrapping.