BBQ Pork Shoulder Part 1

Ideal temp

We're cookin'

Firebox open

Jeremy here with a special guest (chef in training) Thomas Waldrop. So here it goes... For Christmas/Birthday, since my birthday falls 2.5 weeks before Christmas I wanted three things: Smoker with fire box, bike rack, and mountain bike. I was blessed with all three. So I put my smoker together in my living room the day after Christmas (with no extra parts left over). Tuesday night I decided to smoke some baby back ribs. Sadly, that was a fail. When I've rigged up my Weber grill to smoke with, I have used lighter fluid to get the fire started. I thought that would be ok with this smoker. Unfortunately I was well corrected when my baby backs started making one's tongue numb from the taste of lighter fluid. Once you got past that first tingle, they weren't that bad. Anyway.... So I went to Lowes this week and bought a charcoal chimney, and two bundles of hickory firewood. For those of you not familiar with a charcoal chimney, it is roughly the size of a large paint can, with a grate to hold the charcoal, a handle and vents throughout to get the fire going. What you do is load the charcoal on top and pack the bottom with balled up newspaper. You then set the chimney on a well ventilated surface with a fireproof bottom. Your driveway should do. Then you light the paper and wait. Once your coals are ready you pour them into your firebox. Then add wood chunks to the coals. Adjust your dampers till your temp is maintaining between 225 and 250 degrees F.

Prepping the shoulder:

Get a sharp knife. Very sharp!

-Skin the pork skin off

-Heavily coat the pork shoulder with rub.

-Place on grill for 6-9 hours. (we are cooking ours for 7.5 hours)

-Continue to add wood and adjust dampers to maintain temperature for the whole cook time.

Rub:

Sorry guys and gals, I'm not giving our my rub recipe but I will tell you the ingredients so you can come up with your own.

-sea salt

-garlic powder

-onion powder

-chili powder

Oh man, I almost forgot and this is KEY! You must, must, must, must keep a large foil pan with water in it under your meat. Dry meat is no meat of mine. Keep an eye on it too. Don't let it dry up. You can also add beer or apple cider vinegar to the moisture. I've tried both. It turns out well.

More to come....