faster pulled pork

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twistertail

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Jun 26, 2007
693
11
Central Ohio
Thought I would tell you all what I've done the last few times for pulled pork. I've bought country style ribs which most of us know that they are just slices of pork shoulder. I just rub them and put them in the smoker for about 2 hours then put them in a foil pan with about a cup of apple juice and then cover it tight with foil and cook for about 2 more hours. So it only takes 4 hours total and the meat pulls just like you would with a whole shoulder. So in just about 4 hours or so you can have delicious pulled pork. A few notes about doing this, you have a lot more surface area so you will get a lot more smoke and maybe not need to use as much rub. I have done this 3 times now and found that using hickory chunks actually made it a little TOO smoky for me and I've used cherry 2 times and it was not enough smoke flavor so I think one chunk of hickory and 2 chunks of cherry will be just right. I actually think this method taste better than doing the whole shoulder.
 
I inadvertantly did this before...LOL! Doing C ribs, and quite over cooked them. And yeah, the smoke DOES get alot stronger with all that surface area.

Nice post!
 
I did it by mistake once and have been tweaking my mistake ever since.
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Did the same with some boneless country style ribs the wife brought home a while back. As you said, a quicker way to do PP for just a few people.
 
I like the sounds of this! Not that there is anything wrong with leftovers for PP sammies. But when ya only need a bit of PP for a small dinner and have a lack a time this sounds great.
 
I think at some point I've posted the "Quick Cook" method for butts. Quick cook means about 5 hours for a port butt, and most people can't tell the difference in one cooked 10 hours. I'll try and find the post for those that might be interested.
 
Not really sure. I guess it would be about the same as doing a whole butt which I think most people on here say its about half the pre-cooked weight, you still have the same amount of bone and fat.

Not sure if this will give you a good comparison but I had about 6lbs and after it was all pulled I had a bowl that is about 8" across and 5" deep that was full to the very top. I pick through pretty good and get all the fat out to. It seemed to be a little less meat that I got from the last butt that I did that was 7.5lbs, so the proportion seemed to be about the same.
 
Yes it is nice that you could do smaller amounts if you want but the biggest reason I've done this is because I was able to buy the country style ribs for 88 cents/lb vs $1.82/lb for the whole shoulder.
 
C S ribs rule. Been doing them for years. They are also good not pulled with BBQ sauce and crisped on the Weber gas for finish.
 
Wow! I maybe done cooking whole butts for a while. I threw some CS style on the smoker late this afternoon and dang! I've got so much more bark and flavor, its just awesome.

Did I mention that I like bark
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Ok, I too tried this yesterday afternoon and was very pleased with the outcome! I dont know if I will quit the long butt smokes but these were quicker.
 
I think I'll still do whole butts also, especially when I know I've got a bigger group. It seems to take longer to pull the ribs than it does the whole butt. With the whole but you just have the one bone instead of one in each rib plus you can get a lot of the fat off in a few big chunks instead of picking it off each rib.
 
I like this idea a lot! Cheap and tasty are both good. And for me, its hard to schedule a day around a long smoke.
 
i noticed this when i was cooking cs ribs as part of a rib cook-off earlier this month. the ribs provided were half CS and half spare ribs. when we were portioning the finished CS ribs, i thought to myself that i should be pulling it and serving it on buns as it was THAT tender, juicy etc., just like PP.
 
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