How long to Smoke a Shoulder

So you don't think my 30 hour total cook time is too long?

Also how long should I let a piece of meat this large rest before pulling? I've done smaller pieces of Pork and let it set about 45min before pulling

Thanks I'll let you know how it turns out

I smoked my should last weekend and it turned out awesome, here's what I did.

Saturday morning I opened the package from Costco and found out that the 15 lb shoulder had already been cut into 2 smaller pieces. Took both pieces coated them with mustard then a good coating of my rub. Wrapped the them in a double layer of plastic and put them in the refrigerator this was about 8am.

At 1pm I started my smoker with 2 chimneys of lump charcoal, and a couple of small logs of oak & apple. I have an unmodified Char Griller offset firebox smoker, so I place a pan of water on the charcoal grate in the main chamber as close to the firebox as possible, I think you can see it in the one photo.


At 2pm I put the meat on the grates and closed the lid. I checked the charcoal/wood level about every 2 hours and added charcoal and wood as needed. I was using a combo of Oak, Cherry, Apple & Hickory. At around 6pm I flipped the meat and inserted a temp probe.

I continued to check the charcoal/wood until about midnight at which point I took the meat off the smoker and put both pieces in a foil pan. I added about a 1/4 apple juice and covered that with foil. At this point the internal temp was reading 142 degrees. Here's where I cheated a little bit, I put the covered pan in the oven at 200 degrees overnight, I needed a good nights sleep.

Sunday morning 8am I got the smoker going and removed the pan from the oven. I placed the uncovered pan back in the smoker. At this point the internal temp had made it to 190 degrees.

I tended the smoke the same as the day before, adding charcoal and wood as needed. The highest temp I saw on the pork was 195. The smoker temp gauge never went above 150, I don't think the supplied gauge is reliable.

At 3:30 I pulled the pan of meat off the smoker, covered it in foil and let it rest till 4:30. I then attempted to lift it out of the pan to pull it but it just fell apart in my hands. 


Here's the finished product.


So I guess my total smoke time was 25.5 hours. I think I could have probably cut that by a few hours but I don't think the extra time hurt the pork at all, probably because it spent the night covered in the oven.

Thanks I was pleased with the bark as well, this is the first time i coated the meat with mustard prior to the rub and I thnk it made a big difference.