Let me start by saying that I did not intend to enter a second time, but this is my greatest smoke ever and I am awfully proud of it.
It all began innocently enough with the wife saying that pulled pork sounded pretty good. Now this usually means I pick up a bucket of Loyds pulled pork from Wal-mart because mine absolutely and completely suck. But I remembered reading a tutorial from Jeff in a newsletter a couple years ago about a pull that he screwed up, but ended up being his best. So I thought "I can screw stuff up!" and decided to give it a shot.
I bought a 8.88 pound shoulder with the bone in. I believe that this has both the picnic and Boston cuts in it. I jumped on the site and read Jeff's advice on how to cook this thing. I quickly realized that at 9 pounds, this thing would take over 12 hours to smoke. So at 10:30 that night I started gathering my ingredients. Yellow mustard and Jeff's famous rub.
By 11:15 the smoker was hot and the shoulder rubbed down. I threw it on with 4 large chunks of hickory and set an alarm for 3:30 so I could check the wood. The smoker was running at 228 degrees (I think I am getting the hang of how to use the little door to control the temp)
I overslept til 6:30 that morning. I ran out to check the food. It had reached 155 degrees so I double wrapped it in foil and put it back on. The smoker was still chugging along at 224 at that point.
I kept the meat on until 3 pm that day. So a total of 15 1/2 hours on the smoker. I took it out at 200 degrees and set it in a cold oven to sit for 2 hours. After two hours I took it out and stuck a fork in it and gave a little pull. It almost collapsed into a heap of juicy beautiful pork! A couple of quick pulls and the once proud slab of meat was reduced down to a large bowl full of shredded deliciousness!
We topped it off with some BBQ sauce, corn on the cob, and baked beans. If I die tonight, the surgeon will need to remove the smile from my face so the funneral seems less awkward!
The first pic is the 9 pounds of meat just waiting to be rubbed down.
Pic 2 is the meat with the rub
Third pic is the smoker and the elusive thin blue smoke.
Fourth pic is the meat after 15 1/2 hours with a large serving fork in it
Fifth pic is half the meat shredded.
Sorry I don't have a picture of the sandwich and sides, but the plates were cleaned faster than a camera shutter is capable of working!