Pork Shoulder - First Attempt

[teerhardy]

With my son's birthday coming up, and droves of relatives planning to descend on my house I thought I had better begin prepping to feed an army of people.  Over the weekend I made my first attempt to smoke a pork shoulder.  After consulting with MartyG and my grilling yoda (mike.stavlund) I felt prepared for the task.  I got up around 6 (an hour later than I wantedt to) to light my charcoal.  I prepped a charcoal snake on my copper OTS the night before.  I used a rub that I found on extraordinarybbq.com.

The shoulder smoked for 8.5 hours and then rested, wrapped in foil and towels, in a cooler for 2 hours.  Overall I am thrilled with the results and feel confident I can tackle this again when our family comes to town.

Here are some pictures of the process:

My meat is all rubbed down 


Onto copper with some applewood chips




DING! It's done


All shredded up


Smoke ring & bark

[Tim in PA]

Nice work! What size is that shoulder and what temp did you pull it at?

[teerhardy]

It was 8-10# shoulder and I pulled it at 207.  I wanted to it off a bit earlier but hit every red light on the way home.  I was able to keep the temp between 240 and 275.

[1buckie]

Sharp Cookup !!!!

Never get tired of seeing someone's first "attempt" at pulled pork not just be an "attempt", but a raging success !!!!!

[teerhardy]

Sharp Cookup !!!!

Never get tired of seeing someone's first "attempt" at pulled pork not just be an "attempt", but a raging success !!!!!

I was seriously suprised at how it turned out.  Slow cooking a chunk of meat like that is intimidating.  I hoping to do another one over the coming weekend.

[Cuda Dan]

teerhardy
Nice job! I like how you put the chips into the foil

Dan

[teerhardy]

teerhardy
Nice job! I like how you put the chips into the foil

Dan

Thanks Dan!  I was at my in-laws and forgot to bring wood with me.  I soaked some chips I picked up at Lowes and was worried they'd dry out and catch fire rather than smoke over the course of the cook.  No flare ups that I can report, so the foil method worked well.

[AZ Monsoon]

That's awesome you're able to take off and leave the grill unattended while using the snake method.

The pork shoulder looks great.

[1buckie]

"Slow cooking a chunk of meat like that is intimidating."



Obviously not......................

[teerhardy]

"Slow cooking a chunk of meat like that is intimidating."



Obviously not......................

I guess I should have said "was intimidating"

[MrHoss]

Good looking shred you got there.  When I got around to doing brisket I was glad I had my experience with butts.

[addicted-to-smoke]

Looks great teerhardy. Can you fill in these info gaps for the unexperienced?

You weren't home, but knew the temps it was at?

From what I THINK I remember reading, something around 225 for a piece that size should/could take longer than 8 hrs. but since you were closer to 250-275, is that why you knew to come back sooner, rather than expect it to take longer (if say, it was at a lower temp I mean.)

[teerhardy]

Looks great teerhardy. Can you fill in these info gaps for the unexperienced?

You weren't home, but knew the temps it was at?

From what I THINK I remember reading, something around 225 for a piece that size should/could take longer than 8 hrs. but since you were closer to 250-275, is that why you knew to come back sooner, rather than expect it to take longer (if say, it was at a lower temp I mean.)

I monitored the temp for 5 hours before I left, and it was running between 240 and 270.  It spiked a few times to 300, but went down after closing the vents a bit.  When I left the temp was holding at 247 and when I returned the temp was 256.  The shoulder could have been smaller than I think it was.  It came it a 2 pack and the other weighs in at 8.5 pounds. 

[1buckie]

"Slow cooking a chunk of meat like that is intimidating."



Obviously not......................

I guess I should have said "was intimidating"

now that we have the semantics & the time line figgered out..............

[Winz]

Awesome job!  Even better that you had to improvise with the wood chips and figured out a way to make it work.  Congrats on a fine cook.

Winz