- Jan 11, 2015
- 17
- 10
Ok ladies and gents, help me out and give me some feedback and/or tips and suggestions. I decided a few weeks ago to smoke a pork shoulder. After researching for a while, I found the basics in several forums on how it should go but I decided to kinda wing it and see how it would turn out. Here is what I started out with, pretrimmed it weighed 8.5lbs.
I decided to cut the skin and about 90% of the fat off before I put the rub on. I coated it in yellow mustard and then put a store bought rub on it that I had sitting in the pantry. While it sat I preheated my MES to its highest temp (275). According to my Redi Check thermometer, it averaged around 265* the whole time.
I didn't have any apple juice handy so I took a pan and watered down apple sauce until it was like apple juice. It worked pretty well to keep the meat moist but not as moist as i would have hoped. For whatever reason, I used cherry wood instead of apple. It smoked for approximately 8 hrs and then I pulled it out at 194*, double wrapped it in foil, wrapped it in a towel and placed it in a cooler for 1 1/2 hrs to rest. I did make the mistake of not soaking the wood chips first and that is why I think it got a little too dark.
While it rested I decided since the smoker was still on to make some seasoned cherry tomatoes and mini golden potatoes. Once they were done I unwrapped the shoulder and grabbed my Bear Claws and started to pull and shred.
Here are the finished products! I let the family add their own sauce on their plates since we tend to like a variety of different sauces. It turned out very good in my opinion. It was moist, but could have been moister. So my wish from all of you is to help me make this better if possible. Should I mop the shoulder while it smokes? Should I have injected it? Any tips or tricks would be welcomed. Thank you so much!
I decided to cut the skin and about 90% of the fat off before I put the rub on. I coated it in yellow mustard and then put a store bought rub on it that I had sitting in the pantry. While it sat I preheated my MES to its highest temp (275). According to my Redi Check thermometer, it averaged around 265* the whole time.
I didn't have any apple juice handy so I took a pan and watered down apple sauce until it was like apple juice. It worked pretty well to keep the meat moist but not as moist as i would have hoped. For whatever reason, I used cherry wood instead of apple. It smoked for approximately 8 hrs and then I pulled it out at 194*, double wrapped it in foil, wrapped it in a towel and placed it in a cooler for 1 1/2 hrs to rest. I did make the mistake of not soaking the wood chips first and that is why I think it got a little too dark.
While it rested I decided since the smoker was still on to make some seasoned cherry tomatoes and mini golden potatoes. Once they were done I unwrapped the shoulder and grabbed my Bear Claws and started to pull and shred.
Here are the finished products! I let the family add their own sauce on their plates since we tend to like a variety of different sauces. It turned out very good in my opinion. It was moist, but could have been moister. So my wish from all of you is to help me make this better if possible. Should I mop the shoulder while it smokes? Should I have injected it? Any tips or tricks would be welcomed. Thank you so much!