Uneven pork shoulder

[ladyoutsider]

Hey guys, the last couple times I smoked a pork shoulder it cooked fairly unevenly with one side still 175-180 while the other side was pushing 210. What do you like to do in these situations?

The first time I decided to just take it off when most of it was at 203, rest it for an hour and pull it. A bit of the pork was clearly not done.

The second time I waited till the lower-temp section hit 195, overdone section be damned.

I was wondering if there was a third option. Remove it when the lower-temp section of the shoulder is at 180, and encourage it to even out by wrapping it and sticking in the cooler for 4 hours. Would that work or is 180 too low of a temperature to even out once it’s off the heat?

 

[daveomak]

Sounds as if you are using a MES30 smoker... Anywho, you can always put the meat in your oven to finish the cook after the smoke was added OR rotate the meat on the rack or sometimes, wrapping the meat with butchers twine to reshape it to something more uniform will help...