Pulled Pork

[Fosgate]

I love pulled pork when I get it tender but render a lot of fat out and it just settles so easy off the smoker without anything sauce added to it. I forgo a bun for myself but I buy King Hawaiian slider buns or Sara Lee hawaiian sweet rolls and bread and butter chunk pickles for everyone else. I'm pretty content with just some pulled pork and a veggie. This is probably the easiest most forgiving meat to cook on a smoker and probably the top reason to buy a smoker (and pork ribs).

Get down to it. Following the Traeger recipe to pretty tough to beat. Secret you make your own style by the rub you use. Me I find sweet rubs really compliment pork and chicken. Also what you brine them with the night before. Two I found simple and easy is this

Here is the brine recipe I used to use that worked really well on pork and poultry.


Ingredients
• 1 gallon warm water
• 3/4 cup kosher salt
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Add all ingredients to list
Directions

Prep

1. Pour the warm water into a container that is twice the volume of the water. Pour in the salt, sugar, soy sauce, and olive oil. Stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved, then allow the brine to cool to room temperature.
2. To use, place chicken in the brine, cover, and refrigerate two hours for skinless breasts, 4 hours for bone-in pieces, and 4 hours to overnight for whole chickens. Drain and pat the chicken dry before cooking. One gallon of brine is enough for 6 pounds of whole chicken or bone-in chicken pieces, and up to 10 pounds of skinless, boneless chicken breasts.

Footnotes

• For Pork add Brown Sugar to equal the salt.


Note I said I used to. I picked up a trick from cooking Asian food. You can also use a few cans of Sprite or 7up instead for everything from Pork, Poultry, Shrimp and fish and it works terrific without changing the flavor or adding sweetness. Weird, I know. Also on poultry you can spritz it on while cooking to get that great crispy skin (ask any Asian grandmother)

So all you need is one bone in whole pork shoulder. Some apple juice to spritz and your choice of rub. I personally love Meat Churches Honey Hog and their Deez Nuts Pecan Rub as a combo. Their Voodoo if you like a little spice to it.

1. Heat the smoker to 200 (i start off at a low heat to produce a lot of clean smoke for the meat to absorb early on.) One can start off at 250 if they choose
2. Trim the excess fat off the pork butt
3. lightly smear Frenches mustard as a binder for the rub
4. Generously season and preseason with your choice of rub
5. Set directly on the grate fat side toward the heat source for two hours with a meatloaf pan full of water.
6. Bump heat to 250 spritzing with apple juice every couple hours
7. After several hours once you can stick a meat probe in with no resistance like butter its ready. Pulled pork is done at 203-205. If you wait to pull it at that temp it will continue to cook about another 10 degrees making it dry. I pull anywhere between 190-195.
8. Wrap in pink butcher paper or foil for a softer outside with about a half a cup to a cup of apple juice, and a towel and stuff it in a cooler like and Rtic or Yeti for an hour.
9. Unwrap and drain the juice and fat if you choose and place in a large tray
10. Remove the bone, shred the pork and enjoy.

 

[Kathi_S]

Now I'm actually drooling!