First Pork Shoulder

[Danny Hardesty]

Did my first ever pork shoulder on my new WSM yesterday, using the Minion method with Kingsford Charcoal Briquettes and sand in the water pan. It reached an internal temp. of 190 after ten hours of grill temps. between 225 and 255. Did not use any foil except to wrap it when I took it off the grill and put it in the cooler.

Was quite pleased with the texture as the meat was moist and fall apart tender(it about broke in half as I took it off the grill with my fork).

However, believed it could have used more rub as the meat was not quite as salty as it needed to be at the end of the Q. Also, I used oak instead of hickory for my wood chunks and the meat was not quite as "smoky" flavored as I like so will use tried and true hickory next time.

Danny Hardesty

Pics are at:

Doctawack

 

[Kevin Taylor]

Danny....

Keep in mind when preparing butts.....they are VERY thick so your rubs and smoke will not penetrate deeply into the meat. Rubs and marinades only penetrate to 5mm. So, more rub before cooking is not going to help.

The trick is to do the following AFTER you pull the meat. Sprinkle again with your rub and then make sure you have mixed in enough of the bark so that every bite gives you at least some of that bark. The bark is where most of the smokines will be.

 

[Danny Hardesty]

Thanks for the tip Stogie! Will do that next time I barbecue one (prolly next weekend!) /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Danny Hardesty

 

[Tony Weisse]

Also, it always seems like there's more smokiness on the reheat.

 

[Jim Beauchamp (Smokin Jim)]

Danny, another method you might want to try to get more meat exposed to the rub and more smoke flavor is this: try removing the bone from the butt and then butterfly the meat. This will result in at least double the exposed area and will also yeild more of the bark. I have used this method and have found that it will also cut your cooking time down. The only draw back is it takes twice as musch room.

 

[Guest]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>... try removing the bone from the butt and then butterfly the meat. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>That's what I did recently.

The 7lb butts I had all seemed to naturally split along a muscle group and I wound up with a bone-in half slightly smaller than a boneless half.

Not only did they cook faster but I had twice the bark.

 

[Dennis Fraley]

I always do the shoulders With the bone in. I'm gonna try taking it out next time before smoking.

Thanks Guys