Cushion pulled pork and some spares... First long smoke in a while!

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worktogthr

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
SMF Premier Member
Nov 3, 2013
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1,032
Massapequa, NY (Long Island)
Well I have been MIA as far as smoking is concerned for most of July but for fun reasons. A week camping in PA with the family and 5 days in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico for a 10th anniversary trip sans daughter! Ate a lot of great food in Mexico but still missed that smokey flavor. So my brother in law's block party is Saturday and I told him I'll make some pulled pork for it. I had a 11 pound package of pork cushion meat in the freezer so I thawed it out and got to work.

Rubbed the four pieces with Memphis dust:


Rubbed an Untrimmed rack of spares with Jeff's rub for tomorrow night's dinner:


Put the spares on the bottom grate of my WSM 18 and the pork cushions on the top grate. Cooked at about 275-300 with a mosh mash of what I had leftover as far as coal and wood. Some Stubbs, some KBB, and some hickory and apple chunks mixed in.


I foils the ribs after about three hours. Let it go about another hour and here is what I had:

Ribs out of the foil:

Pork cushion after 4 hours:

Decided to stop cooking he ribs as I will sauce and heat tomorrow for dinner!

At around 5 hours in the cushion is at about 180:


For the sake of time I foiled them and they came up to 205 about 40 minutes later:


Let them sit for an hour or so and then pulled:


Came out great! Cushion makes a good pulled pork. Not as juicy and fatty as a butt but plenty of moisture and tenderness. My plan is to reheat this on Saturday to bring to the block party. I'll probably toss is with the defatted foiling juices and some BBQ sauce to reheat.

Well thanks for looking! I'm glad to be back in action. I actually missed that smell that clings to your clothes after a long day of smoking!

-Chris
 
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Nice job Chris!

Everything looks delicious!

Bet it felt good to get the smoker fired up again!

Point!

Al
 
Chris Welcome back glad you had a good Vacation.Food looks great Points

Richie
 
I am interested but have never heard of pork cushion. Is this something you buy at a regular super market? If it is not as dry as a pork butt I am curious to try it. That was the main complaint about my first attempt at pulled pork was that it was too fatty. Any info on this would be much appreciated.
 
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Good info up above. Pop's post is a good visual of where it is on the picnic. A bit leaner than the butt. Average butt is probably around 20-25% fat but everything I have read on the cushion is that it's about 13-15 % fat
 
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