Pork Shoulder

[slider n copa]

I did a 10# shoulder from Walmart the night before last, That was the worst cut of meat I have ever seen. There was so much fat in it, it took it to 155 it in the smoker I used Royal Oak hardwood lump for the base of the fire and kept feeding small chunks of Oak to control the temp, at 155 I wrapped it and put it in my oven preheated to 265 (I had intended to drop it back down 225 but at 3 am I was about brain dead)
I got up at 7 and my probe were at 197 and 199 I did drop it back to 225. At 9 they hit 201 and 203, The party didn't start till 2 so I shut the oven off and covered the foiled shoulder with a towle to keep it warm and went back to bed. Got back up at 11 both probe still at 190. Plenty of juice available. My biggest issue was the amount of fat still in it and how little smoke flavor it had. Not sure what happend. Nice smoke ring where it could get to the meat, just not a whole lot of smoke flavor,
I'm done with Walmart meat. I still think I used plenty of wood just more often and smaller chunks, gonna have to do some testing. I have pictures just haven't pulled them from the camera yet
just did some reading of older posts and found one issue I think, I didn't remove the layer of skin, seems like the layer of skin protected it from the smoke so only about half of it got smoked.

 

[SmokinAl]

You have to trim all that skin & fat off the shoulder before you smoke it or the rub & smoke won't get to the meat.

Do you have any photo's?

Al

 

[slider n copa]

I appreciate your comments and had figured it out once I read a couple of other posts about the skin, felt dumb as a post as I have beensmokin meat for a few years, but that was the first pork shoulder I had ever done, All in all there must have been at least a third of it fat, I'll stick with pork butts if I wanna do pulled pork, I do have pictures but need to get them off the camera

 

[dirtsailor2003]

The other thing is if you want smoke flavor and bark, keep it in the smoker until you get to 205. By foiling and placing in the oven you are basically braising the meat which will remove the bark and dilute the smoke flavor.