Southern Style Pulled Pork
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This is the classic smoked meat, and the good news is that pork shoulder is very forgiving so this is a great way to start.
Pulled pork doesn’t need to be drenched in sauce – it depends on the rub and the smoke for flavor, and is dressed with a little sauce once it is on the sandwich.
Southern Style Pulled Pork
Category
BBQ/Grilling
Persons
16
Serving Size
2 cups
Prep Time
1 hour
Cook Time
8 hours
Total Time
9 hours
Notes
The traditional sides with pulled pork are cole slaw, baked beans, and/or macaroni and cheese.
Ingredients
- A whole pork shoulder or pork butt (8# is typical)
- Oil or Mustard
- Pork Rub of your choice (I like to use Meathead’s Memphis Dust)
- Pork Injection & Mop
- 1 cup apple juice or cider
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1/2 cup cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
Instructions
- Trim most of the fat from the exterior of the meat, leaving no more than 1/8″. We want the seasonings on the meat so that it gets a crunchy seasoned bark.
- Rinse and thoroughly dry the meat.
- Use butchers twice to tie the shoulder up so it doesn’t fall apart in the smoker.
- Inject the meat, using about half of the Injection/mop. Insert the needle and inject, but don’t pull it all the way back out – pull it part way out and then re-inject at another angle from the same hole.
- Wrap or bag the meat and place it in a pan to refrigerate overnight or for at least 4 hours.
- Remove the meat and rub the entire shoulder with a neutral vegetable oil or mustard to act as an adhesive to “stick” the rub to the meat.
- Rub generously with the Pork Rub and work it in with your fingers – figure a tablespoon of rub per pound, which is a 1/2 cup of rub per 8# of pork shoulder. Let that sit on the pork for an hour or two to let the rub work its way in to the surface.
- Insert a digital temp probe and position the tip right in the center. Make sure it is not touching the bone or within 1/2″ of the bone.
- Preheat your smoker – shoot for 250 degrees in the smoking chamber; if using a Pit Barrel just light the coals and wait until they are covered in white ash.
- Place the shoulder in the smoker – mop the shoulder with the remaining pork mop once every hour or two, this adds moisture and flavor and it also cools the meat so it doesn’t get over done near the surface. Don’t over mop, especially in a Pit Barrel as it can run down and extinguish your coals.
- Once the shoulder hits 160 degrees, remove the pork shoulder from the smoker. After 3-4 hours the shoulder will absorb all of the smoke it’s going to get, so I prefer to place the shoulder in a roaster pan, add a cup of apple juice, and cover tightly with foil and place in a 250 degree oven. Keep the thermometer in place.
- Take the shoulder to 200 degrees. If you have time, shut off the oven and let the shoulder cool naturally to ~150 degrees. Otherwise remove from the oven, keeping it in the pan and foil, and let it rest for 30 to 60 minutes. If you would like to hold it up to 4 hours, you can wrap the shoulder in foil and then in towels and then place it in a cooler that has been pre-warmed with hot water.
- About 30 minutes before dinner, put the meat into a large pan to catch the drippings and pull the meat apart with fingers, forks, or bear claws into bite size pieces. Discard any big chunks of fat. Make sure you save any flavorful drippings and pour them back over the meat. If you have any of the Pork Mop left over, add it to the pulled pork.
- Serve Pulled Pork on plain white buns with BBQ sauce on the side.