First attempt at smoking a shoulder, I think I did pretty well.

Good lookin' butt, almost looks like a nice glazed double-smoked ham!

If you want a bark (crust) you need to keep the surface dry for at least the final hour or so. For a really well developed bark, you can start the process in the fridge after rubbing...wrap in plastic wrap, place in a rimmed platter, bowl or cake pan to catch any leakage if it happens. Oh, never used mustard myself, and get great bark. Rest in the fridge for a couple days ahead of the smoke if you like, or overnight (8-12hrs). This resting time will allow the salts in the rub to begin to draw a bit of juices from the meat and the dry rub will soak them up and really tack up on the meat quite well. You can just dry rub and let it rest in open air while you get final preps ready on the smoker for 20 minutes or so, also. This helps to temper the meat a bit by letting it warm slightly just prior to hitting the smoker grates. During the smoke, your dry rub will also absorb more meat juices and some rendered fat as the meat cooks. This all combines to get crispy over longer smoke times, and with proper chamber temps and dry rub ingredients, will not scorch or burn. Speaking of scorching, added sugars in a butt or brisket rub is a bit risky due to the sugar's tendency to caramelize at lower temps, leading to scorched bark, and especially over longer cooking times such as with pork butts, pork picnic shoulders and beef brisket, just fyi.

The rub, wrap and rest in the fridge probably will yield the best bark for smoke chamber temps of 225-245*. I've also noticed that I get the most prominent bark in a charcoal rig vs propane, so chalk one up for the coal-burners. You can get a nice bark without the wrap and fridge rest also, but whatever you do, don't baste/mop/spray...it's all about getting everything on the surface dried-up, at least towards the end of the smoke. The pork shoulder cuts have enough interior fat and collagen to help them stay moist inside on their own, so to mop or baste is really not necessary, IMHO, and will kill your bark deader than a door-nail.

The mop/spray process you used for this butt would work well for ribs, btw, if you didn't want bark, but instead wanted a nice glaze, cuz that looks freekin' good from where I'm sitting!

If there's anything else we can help you with, just give a shout.

Eric

1000X What LOS  sed!!

Great job for your first one though.

As Eric has said there is no need to Mop Butts and especially if you want bark. The Best Sugar for Bark developement is Turbinado aka Sugar in the Raw. The Raw sugar is flavorful and is in large granules and resists burning much better than regular sugar. You don't mention what temp you were smoking at but 225-250*F does a good job over the long haul...JJ

That looks awesome and I'll bet your recipe/process would be great on a ham!

HMMEATS said:

 

So this is my first little guy (that I have done completely by myself) he was only an 8 pounder, which I figured would be a good size for my first one.

I had made a homemade ginger applesauce so I mixed that with a little spicy mustard and used that to make the rub really stick to the meat. I picked up the suggestion of using mustard to make your rub stick from someone on here, I can't remember who though.

I made sure to keep him all nice and juicy by alternating using a bbq sauce mop and by spraying the little guy with a balsamic vinegar/pineapple mango juice mixture. The picture about was from when I had about 2 hours left. Unfortunately by the time I got it all cut up and ready to go I forgot to take a picture and then it was gone. But everyone was really happy with the results!

can anyone tell me how you really get that crust on your smoked meats? I really liked mine but was disappointed that it didn't have that crust.

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That looks fantastic. It's different seeing a glazed butt, but that apple/ginger slather and pineapple/vinegar mop sounds like it made a really tasty shell, especially if a good deal of smoke managed to cling to that sugary glaze. As other have said, I wouldn't mind trying this on some ribs!

Thanks for sharing!



 

Chef JimmyJ said:

As Eric has said there is no need to Mop Butts and especially if you want bark. The Best Sugar for Bark developement is Turbinado aka Sugar in the Raw. The Raw sugar is flavorful and is in large granules and resists burning much better than regular sugar. You don't mention what temp you were smoking at but 225-250*F does a good job over the long haul...JJ

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Turbinado sugar as a proto-bark?

I've not heard of that, but it makes alot of sense. I'll have to give this a shot!