First Pork Shoulder on the MES

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camalama

Newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2010
10
10
Smoked my first pork shoulder on my MES today. I'm not an avid smoker, but only due to having young kids and running everywhere on the weekends. Thus the MES and not a real wood smoker. Regardless, up til now I've only been a chicken and ribs guy, so today I made my dive into a pork shoulder. Being my first one, I got a small 5 pounder, just in case. The day before i put a rub on it and injected it with a simple apple juice/rub mix. I fired up the MES at 5:00 this morning, put my pellets in at 5:30 and the meat went on at 6:00. Temp was set at 225* and off I went to shoot a few dove. Checked back in at 9:00, restocked the pellets and let er smoke. I expected them to be done between 3:00 and 4:00, but at 4:15 with the in-laws licking their chops, we were only at 180*. Reading that the shoulder is pretty forgiving I bumped the heat and got er up to 190* by 5:30. Pulled it off the smoker and into the cooler for a cool down. It looked and smelled great. Pulled apart without effort and had a nice bark on it. Using the MES I didn't have a smoke ring, but with pulled pork, I'm the only one that would have seen it anyway. Lessons learned, next time I'll run it at 250* and take it to 200* IT. I'll also let it rest for longer than 30 minutes. I used the finishing sauce by JJ but not much. I found it to heavy on the vinegar. Next time I'll skip it all together. Not that it's not good, I just don't have a taste for vinegar. All in all, the in laws thought it was great and had 3 helpings before pushing their plates away. Thanks to all the posts on SMF making this smoke a success.
- Cameron
 
Looks real nice.

As for the smoke rib usually the electric units dont give a smoke ring but you can still taste the smoke flavor. If you want a smoke ring I believe most watt burners use the A-Maze-N Smoker and that gives a nice smoke ring.
 
You won't get a real nice smoke ring w/ MES. But it's not a sign of good or bad Q. anyway.

  Taking your internal temp to 200 and a couple hrs rest should improve your texture and flavor.
 
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