Pulled Pork / Smoked Pork Shoulder

joshpounds90

Just gonna' leave this here:

Overnight-brined (12+ hours) this 7.5 pound pork shoulder I nabbed from Wegman's in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, using a mixture of water, kosher salt, honey, fresh rosemary, black peppercorns, 1/2 an onion, 6 cloves of cracked garlic, paprika & cayenne. Dry rub used is Dizzy Pig Dizzy Dust. Preheated my medium BGE before bringing the dome temp. to 225°F. Inserted the probe, closed the lid and let it ride. After about seven hours, it had reached 159°F internal so I wrapped it in butcher paper and dumped on a mop of apple cider vinegar, salt, light brown sugar, ground black pepper, cayenne & red pepper flakes.


I didn't get a pic of the wrapping and mopping part, so the next image is almost three hours later....

Once it hit 203°F internal, I opened up the packet to take a look. 

Then I brought my dome temp. to 250°F and threw the shoulder back on the grid naked for a half hour.

After the half hour was up, I felt pretty good about the bark. I then double-wrapped the shoulder in clean butcher paper, wrapped it up in a beach towel nice and tight, and threw it in my Yeti for an hour to rest. When the hour was up, I unwrapped it and was very pleased by my result. In a large pot, using tongs, I pulled the bone and it shredded easily.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Looks awesome to me.

lousubcap

Great documentation and cook right there.  Congrats.
A trick I learned many years ago regarding the dome thermo positioning:  
I rotate the thermo so that my target cook temp is a 12 o'clock.  That way a casual glance lets me know how the cook is tending.  FWIW-

dmchicago

WInner, winner...pulled pork dinner!

Mark_B_Good

That looks incredible my friend ... wow, A+.

By the way, educate me ... why did you feel the need to put it on naked at the end ... when you hit 203F to 205F, she's good, and I would be worried about drying it out if I put it on naked after that!

Foghorn

Great cook and pics.  Thanks for posting.  

JohnInCarolina

That looks great.  Did you bump up the temp in the BGE after wrapping in foil?

joshpounds90

I didn't let the temp. come up past 275-280°F after I wrapped it in butcher paper. That said, I don't think it was hotter than 230°F for a majority of the cook. As for putting it back on, I guess even though it had reached 203° internal this was a pretty fatty pork shoulder and retained a TON of moisture. I wanted a crispier bark, so that's what I was shooting for. It didn't fail, but didn't quite seem to give me exactly what I was looking for.