My last cook was a 4.5 pound shoulder. I tried a brine on it this time. Brined it overnight in 2.5 cups water, .5 cup salt, .5 cup brown sugar and some of my rub. Pulled it out of the fridge in the morning and rinsed it in cold water then patted it dry. Coated it in mustard, then my rub on it. Wrapped it in plastic wrap and out it in the fridge for another hour or two. Got my smoker going, I use kingsford briquettes. Once the smoker temp was at around 225 I took it out of the fridge and threw it directly on the smoker. I have been having difficulty getting the smoker temp up, so I used an empty water bowl to start. Took almost 30 mins from the time the charcoal was going and I put the mid section, water bowl and lid on the smoker until it reached 250 degrees on the factory thermometer. Once the pork was on for about three and a half hours I checked the meat temp and it was around 145. After that I mopped it every 45 mins until the temp stalled. Then I wrapped it in foil and mopped it one more time. Once it reached internal temp of around 197 I pulled it, and FTC'd it for an hour and a half. Then pulled it and served it. The last couple hours the smoker temp started getting a bit high, and I had to close the vents too much and it started choking the fire, so I put a few cups of boiling water in the water bowl and opened the vents and it helped keep the temp down around 250. There wasn't large chunks of fat in the finished product, just more gelatinized fat than I was used to seeing. Also, I used a digital thermometer the first time I cooked with the
wsm because I couldn't get the temp up over 200. And the digital thermometer read the same as the weber one. I checked the digital one in boiling water and it read 212. I am 50 ft above sea level
