Pork Butt with Pig Liquor

Smothered it in yellow mustard and gave it a heavy dosing of my all-purpose rub with some ground cloves added. It smelled soooooo good just sitting there with just the spices! Put this in a brining bag and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 6 hours....

When the fire was established at a good 225 degrees with some apple and mesquite woods added for smoke, I pulled the meat and injected it with a solution of apple juice, juice of 1 large orange, sherry, and melted butter. The meat went on the indirect egg (plate setter, legs up) in a heavy duty baking dish with v-rack at 7:45 PM.

The CyberQ did its thing and held temp constant overnight. At 12 hours, the meat was at 155 degrees IT. At 16.5 hours, it was at 173 IT. I disabled the ramp function on the CyberQ and bumped the dome to 275. By 3:00 PM, the CyberQ reported that the cook was done. I confirmed with the Thermapen that we were at 187 to 193 degrees throughout.

17.5 hours after going on the fire, the meat came off the pit. I FTC'd (foiled, toweled, and coolered) it for an hour and a half to let it rest.

After resting, the meat came out of the cooler and I pulled it. Dayum, it was looking, smelling, and tasting good! My wife was standing next to me stealing bites and was salivating right along with our dog who was sitting at my feet begging for stray bits!

Everything to this point is pretty standard Pork Butt cooking, except for my phenomenal top-secret all-purpose rub.  But here's where the cook went different: Instead of adding barbeque sauce to the pulled pork or even leaving the pork dry for us to make our own decisions regarding what sauce we wanted to put on it, I tried something new that I had found here on the Egghead Forum.

Pig Liquor!

2 cups apple juice

1 cup apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons rub

Boil to combine flavors and pour over the meat.

Mix and serve.

That meat was tender and moist with a flavor completely different from your standardly sauced pulled pork!  Good stuff. We had it last night, and I even pulled it back out and heated up a little for breakfast this morning!

Ideally, I should have probably refrigerated it for about a day instead of just 6 hours prior to going on the pit, but I cooked it very low and slow to make up for not letting the rub break down the fibers and tenderize it. Luckily, it worked out this time!