Pulled Pork Shoulder

​I hear people use phrases like "don't bother", "it's not worth it" and "that's too much trouble" all time and it makes me wonder whether people think that anything is worth the "trouble" anymore.  Maybe it's just me but I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions lately that I find myself constantly making decisions about which things in my life are important enough to devote myself to and which things are not.  There are some things that I just can't "bother" with right now and other things are quite simply - worth the trouble.  One of the things that has required a lot of my time and energy lately is my son's wrestling team.  This group of boys and coaches are definitely worth devoting some of my time to.   In a nutshell - they're "worth it."  

There are some meals that are also worth a little extra trouble.  Cooking a Boston Butt on the Big Green Egg for 9 hours is not for the faint of heart but if you have the perseverance to see it through, the results are definitely worth the time that you put into it.  This is not a quick and easy meal that's thrown together in 30 minutes.  Smoking a pork shoulder requires a tremendous amount of patience and stamina.  It took me several tries to get my Boston Butt to cook properly on the Big Green Egg so don't get discouraged if yours doesn't turn out exactly the way you intended on the first try.  I actually had to throw away my first Boston Butt because I wasn't able to regulate the temperature of the Egg.  After my first failed attempt and about a half dozen other tries at this recipe, I've finally have it almost perfected.

Boston Butt
Dry Rub                                                        Injection Marinade
4 teaspoons seasoned salt                        1/3 cup apple juice
2 teaspoons brown sugar                         1/3 cup white grape juice
1 ½ teaspoons sugar                                    ¼ cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons paprika                                1 ½ Tablespoons salt
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard                        6-8 pound pork shoulder (Boston Butt)
1/8 teaspoon cumin
1/16 teaspoon ginger

Combine dry rub ingredients and spread over roast. 

Inject roast at 1” intervals with marinade.

Put the pork in a disposable aluminum pan and put it on top of the Big Green Egg grate.  Set the temperature to 250 and cook for about 9 hours.  I photographed my pork every couple of hours so you could see how it looked as it cooked.

​This is what it looked like before I put it on the Egg to start cooking.

​This is what it looked like after 2 hours.

​This is what it looked like after 4 hours.

​This is what it looked like after 6 hours.  (By the way - it smelled fantastic when I opened the lid to take this picture.)

​This is what it looked like after 8 hours.

​This is what it looked like when I pulled it off the Egg after 9 hours.

I wrapped the hot pork in foil to allow the juices to redistribute.  I let the pork cool and then I put the wrapped pork in the refrigerator overnight.  (It's not necessary to refrigerate them but I didn't need them until the following day.)

​Once the pork is cool, I either pull it apart with my hands or with 2 forks.

This makes really good pulled pork sandwiches.  My family likes to drizzle a little barbecue sauce over their pork and eat it on a whole wheat bun as a sandwich.  We ate some of the pulled pork for dinner but the majority of it went to school to feed the wrestling coaches this week.  They are more than deserving of this meal.

Cooking a Boston Butt requires a lot of patience but it's totally "worth the effort."

Ciao!

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