Pulled Pork

Preparing your BBQ for cooking

I always inject pork butts as it helps keep moisture and get more flavor inside the meat than dry rub alone can accomplish, and I keep the meat moist by applying a mop occasionally. First step is to mix up these three recipes:

• Pork Injection
• Kansas City Rub
• Pork Mop

Those recipes together are sufficient for an 8-10 pound butt, just multiply ingredients for each subsequent roast you plan on smoking.

Prep your roast by washing and drying it, then take a sharp knife and clean up the edges; I like to trim down the fat a little bit, but just enough for the sake of presentation and efficiency, don't get carried away.

The injection is exactly what it sounds like, and exactly as complicated. Fill your syringe, jam it in the meat, and empty the syringe. This can get messy, and not all the fluid will stay in the roast, so make sure you're prepared for the drips and squirts.

Once you get the butt injected put it in a sealed container, pour any injection that seeped out over the butt, and place in a refrigerator or on ice. You want the butt to marinate for at least 4 hours, although overnight is preferred.

Prior to smoking, drain the butt, discarding the excess fluid, and pat dry with paper towel; let it come up to room temp, about 30 - 45 minutes.

Apply a Dry Rub

You can use any dry rub that you like, I tend to stay with a Kansas City rub as I find the mix of sugars, peppers, and paprika accent the pork well.

First, coat the butt with some plain old yellow mustard, (you will not taste the mustard in the final product so don't worry about using too much, or using anything fancy) the mustard will help the rub stick to the meat, and the vinegar in the mustard will help render down the meat a little bit. Liberally sprinkle the dry rub over the meat and gently massage in.

A variation of this method is to apply the rub to the meat, then coat the meat and rub with mustard, the idea being that the mustard will help form a bark on your butt. Personally I cannot recommend one over the other as being better, but I find the base coat of mustard topped with rub tends to stick better, so that's my go to.

Mop

Apply the mop anytime you open the smoker, which shouldn't be often (if you're lookin', it ain't cookin'). I would recommend applying roughly once an hour, anymore than that and you're wasting smoke and heat, any less than that and I don't think there is much point to it. I keep a kitchen basting mop on hand, nothing fancy, but it gets the meat covered quickly and always cleans up easy.

Smoking

Get your smoker up to a good temperature, I cook butts at 225º-250º using Hickory for the smoke. During the first 2-3 hours I try to maintain a constant smoke; past that there is little benefit to the smoke so I just shoot for a constant heat.

For smoking time I go with 1.5 hours per pound of meat, however I always keep a thermometer in the meat and one on the grill so i can remain aware of both temps at all times. My time calculation is maybe a little longer than needed, but following that ratio will allow ample time for the meat to rest.

I find that pork butt's start to plateau at about 155º-160º, which usually takes 4-5 hours to reach. Once the meat has stalled I wrap the butt in aluminum foil and put back on the smoker; at this point I will often increase the temperature above 250, to move past the stall. I leave the meat wrapped for the remainder of the cook

There is some discussion on the best temperature for pulled pork but I shoot for an even 200º before removing from the grill. I leave the butt foiled, wrap it in an old towel, then put it in a cooler for a minimum of an hour before pulling.

Serving

Once the meat has rested throw it in large container, I like to use a roasting pan, and start shredding it. You can use a couple forks, but I prefer to use a pair of heavy rubber gloves; the rubber keeps the oils off your hands so you don't get burnt, but allows you to use your fingers to separate that meat. Having your hands available for the work also allows you to pick out the few chunks of fat that don't get rendered down, along with the bone, throw that aside and your left with nothing but moist and tender meat.