Low and Slow: A Boneless Pork Shoulder

Good morning!

Well, I woke up around 2:00AM this morning (2016-06-16) from a brief "nap" to start smoking a 6-pound pork shoulder for dinner later today.  I had gone to Whole Foods the other day with the intention of picking up an 8-pound or larger bone-in Boston Butt; but, they only had the 6-pound boneless pork shoulder available and I really didn't feel like driving elsewhere to get a larger bone-in option.  I settled, but I'm looking forward to this cook.  The previous and only other pork shoulder I smoked was bone-in, done recently, and it cooked beautifully.  This will be my first boneless pork shoulder.  I'm assuming there's no real difference in the technique of the cook for a boneless vs a bone-in pork shoulder.  It's a pretty forgiving meat from everything I've read.

As soon as I woke up, I took the pork shoulder out of the refrigerator to let it start coming up to room temperature.  Remembering the clean hand and meat hand approach so as to not cross contaminate everything I'm touching, I set to work.  I immediately started preparing the pork shoulder by spreading French's Honey Mustard on it to use as the adhesive and then added a Smokehouse Rub Spice Blend that I picked up from The Spice & Tea Exchange in Annapolis, Maryland over the weekend.  Basically, it's a blend of garlic, onion, smoked salt, sweet onion sugar, brown mustard, tomato powder, smoke paprika, black pepper, parsley, sage, chipotle pepper, and cinnamon. The rub smells fantastic; so, I'm really hoping the aroma translates to great flavor since it's the first time I'm using this particular rub.  I was careful not to get much rub in the crevices where the bone was because I really don't want there to be a pocket of spices found when shredding this thing - I prefer my rubs to be on the outside of the meat, not in it.  Also, I opt to not wrap the pork shoulder after applying the rub and refrigerating it again for an hour or so. Instead, I simply let it come up to room temperature with the rub generously applied as I tend to setting up the LBGE for the upcoming cook.  This is a picture of the boneless pork shoulder that went on the LBGE (note:  I did do some touch-up on the sides with rub application after snapping this picture):



Prepped the LBGE by spreading out the lump charcoal that was remaining in the firebox from my last cook (which was a rack of Costco back ribs as my last cook), added a few large chunks of Fogo lump charcoal (love this stuff - the size of these chunks are impressive), and spread a mixture of apple and hickory wood chips that had been soaking in water to the outer perimeter of that layer.  Once the charcoal had a good softball-sized fire going, I added some smaller BGE lump charcoal over the initial layer and spread more apple and hickory wood chips all across the top of that layer of charcoal.  Got the plate setter (wrapped in foil), drip pan with water and a little apple juice (does the water and apple juice mixture really do anything... probably not, but I like to think it does), grill, and dome temperature monitor in place before closing the dome with the vent wide open and the daisy wheel removed.

Note for the fellow NewEggers:  When placing the drip pan on the plate setter, I just ball up some foil (x4 of equal'ish sizes) and put it between the plate setter and drip pan so there is no direct contact between the two.  Otherwise you may end up with a crusty mess of something that no longer resembles liquid in the drip pan should all of the liquid boil away during the cook.  Granted, it's not really a concern with a low temperature cook like this, but more of a possibility during higher temperature cooks.  Just something to keep in mind as it was pointed out to me by others on this forum earlier.

With a cook under my belt nearly every other day for the last several weeks (purchased the LBGE a few days before Memorial Day weekend), I easily hit my target temperature of 225 degrees F.  Once the dome temperature hit 190 degrees F, I closed the lower vent and left it open about a half an inch and slid the top daisy wheel into place leaving it open with a little sliver showing for each hole.  From there, I kept a close eye on it until it came up to my target dome temperature of 225 degrees F.  I'm in no rush at all and have given myself plenty of time for this pork shoulder to slowly come up to my target internal temperature of 205'ish degrees F for a dinner with neighbors this evening.

The LBGE's dome temperature has remained a steady 225 degrees F all morning.  There were a few patches of rain that came through and I fashioned a little hat for the daisy wheel out of some foil.  I really do need to invest in a more permanent option to prevent rain water from entering through the top of the dome.  All in good time, I suppose.

The internal temperature for the pork shoulder just hit 165 degrees F; so, I went out to pull it to wrap it up in foil.  I added some apple juice over the pork shoulder as I was wrapping it in foil - not much, just a little to help bring some additional moisture during the latter portion of the cook. I'm fine with the softening of the crust by wrapping and adding some liquid since this is really intended for pulled pork.  If this were intended for slicing the meat and serving it that way, I certainly wouldn't add any liquid when wrapping it in foil, if I even decided to wrap it at all.  This is a picture of the pork shoulder prior to wrapping it in foil:



For the newer folks reading, one thing to keep in mind if you're not very fast with the wrapping of the meat or you simply spend too much time loving/admiring the look of the meat (for longer than is really appropriate - get a room!), you may want to close the dome while you're wrapping or admiring your meat (Giggity).  If you don't close the dome in a reasonable amount of time before putting the wrapped meat back on the grill, the added oxygen coming into the BGE will get your coals fired up again and that may cause the dome temperature to spike up beyond where you really want it to be when you do end up closing the dome.  Simply my observation on maintaining good control of the dome's temperature.

When the internal meat temperature hits 200 degrees F later this afternoon, I'll gather an empty cooler and some old towels before returning to the LBGE.  Then, I'll take the foil-wrapped meat off the LBGE, wrap the old towels around the foil-wrapped meat, place it all in an empty cooler, close the lid, then walk away for a while so the meat can continue cooking itself and rest.

There's a clear addiction here to cooking on the BGE, not that my wife is complaining at all.  Also, I don't hear any neighbors complaining because we've been hosting folks for meals a lot more since purchasing the LBGE... coincidence??? Hmmm...

I hope my write-up helps others learning with their new BGEs.  Comments, suggestions, tips, etc. are certainly welcome.

Happy Cooking!