Don't know what took so long, but last night I decided a 9 lbs. picnic shoulder sounded about right for this weekends smoking adventure. Nothing creative, but here is my process:
1) Buy a well marbled, inexpensive picnic shoulder. Mine was 9lbs for less than $10.
2) Cut skin off the fat cap.
3) LEAVE ALL THE FAT!
4) Rub with whatever you love on pork. Generously.
5) 225 degrees with a combo of Pecan and Applewood chips, soaked.
6) Having an electric allowed me to sleep well, knowing the heat would stay constant.
7) After adding chips when the smoke dies down, it, well, does everything great on it's own.
8) After the stall at about 190 degrees (2-3 hours), the shoulder rose to 200 in about an hour.
9) 16 hours later and it was perfect. I wrapped in two layers of foil, placed it in a cooler and walked away for three hours.
10) The bones pulled out with absolutely no effort and I began the torturous process of hand pulling it.
11) for the bark that didn't stay attached to the actual meat, I cut it up pretty fine and mixed it in with the meat. It feels like the shoulder yielded about 5-6 lbs of meat.
12) STUPID GOOD!
I'm pretty excited about the results. I wanted to try and do as little as possible with this so I could learn and make adjustments in the future. But honestly, I think simplicity has shown why it's such a virtue in smoking meat with this one. I didn't trim fat, I didn't inject, I didn't spray, I didn't foil and put back in the smoker, I didn't add a finishing sauce, and it's FANTASTIC.
As my dad always said, Keep it simple stupid. SUCCESS!
1) Buy a well marbled, inexpensive picnic shoulder. Mine was 9lbs for less than $10.
2) Cut skin off the fat cap.
3) LEAVE ALL THE FAT!
4) Rub with whatever you love on pork. Generously.
5) 225 degrees with a combo of Pecan and Applewood chips, soaked.
6) Having an electric allowed me to sleep well, knowing the heat would stay constant.
7) After adding chips when the smoke dies down, it, well, does everything great on it's own.
8) After the stall at about 190 degrees (2-3 hours), the shoulder rose to 200 in about an hour.
9) 16 hours later and it was perfect. I wrapped in two layers of foil, placed it in a cooler and walked away for three hours.
10) The bones pulled out with absolutely no effort and I began the torturous process of hand pulling it.
11) for the bark that didn't stay attached to the actual meat, I cut it up pretty fine and mixed it in with the meat. It feels like the shoulder yielded about 5-6 lbs of meat.
12) STUPID GOOD!
I'm pretty excited about the results. I wanted to try and do as little as possible with this so I could learn and make adjustments in the future. But honestly, I think simplicity has shown why it's such a virtue in smoking meat with this one. I didn't trim fat, I didn't inject, I didn't spray, I didn't foil and put back in the smoker, I didn't add a finishing sauce, and it's FANTASTIC.
As my dad always said, Keep it simple stupid. SUCCESS!