SMOKED PULLED PORK IN THE BIG GREEN EGG
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The pork shoulders we buy come two in a pack. Since we smoke the pork for about 14 hours, we go ahead and do both shoulders to make good use of time and the lump charcoal. This smoked meat holds up very well when vacuum sealed, frozen, thawed, and reheated. You need about 11 to 14 hours to smoke two, 8-lb. shoulders, another 2 hours to keep in the cooler, and an hour to pull and season it. We start smoking our pork at 8 p.m. the day before we want to eat it. We use a Big Green Egg smoker and a WiFi fan-regulated thermometer. We didn’t need to open our smoker at all while the pork cooked. The resulting pulled pork is exceptionally tender and incredibly delicious. Smoked pork makes awesome quesadillas!
Many butts later, we have found that two, 9-lb shoulders can take as long as 17 hours...and that butts can stall at 165ish degrees F.
INGREDIENTS
Set 1
Barbecue Sauce for Smoked Pork Shoulder Roast (aka pork butt), Brisket, Ribs and Chicken
Dry Rub for Smoking Pork Shoulder Roast (aka pork butt), Brisket, Ribs and Chicken
Set 2
2, 8-lb. pork shoulder/butts
Set 3
Mustard (the regular mustard in the yellow squeeze bottle)
Garlic powder
Light brown sugar
Tools: thermometer for smoker and meat, 3 disposable roasting pans, small baking racks that can fit in roasting pans, plastic wrap, heavy-duty foil, small cooler, very large cutting board or baking pan, rubber bbq gloves (heavy duty) or meat claws
DIRECTIONS
Prepare the Pork
1. Prepare the pork the morning of the same day you will start smoking it, or about as little as 5 hours before you cook it.
2. Rinse the pork shoulders. Leave the fat cap intact. Pat the pork dry.
3. Place one small rack in each roasting pan (less moisture seems to come out of the pork compared to not using a rack). Put one butt atop the rack in each pan, fat cap up.
4. Apply a thin coat of mustard over the fat cap of both pork shoulders. Sprinkle a good coat of garlic powder as well. Apply a liberal coat of the bbq dry rub. Finish the coating with a thin coat of light brown sugar. This entire application gives the pork shoulder an awesome, flavorful bark.
5. Flip each shoulder over to the remaining sides. Repeat the application of mustard, garlic powder, dry rub, and brown sugar.
6. Place two sheets of plastic wrap directly over the exposed surfaces of the pork; the bottom of the pork will be covered by the roasting pan it is in. Keep the pork in the fridge until about an hour to smoke.
Smoke the Pork
7. Prepare your smoker to smoke for as long as 14 to 18 hours. If using lump charcoal and smoking wood, apple wood and oak wood work great.
8. Once the charcoal is ready to start smoking, put the plate setter in with the feet in the up position.
9. Place an empty roasting pan on the plate setter to catch the drippings. Position the grill on top of the plate setter feet.
10. Insert your thermometer probes into each pork shoulder, ensuring the probe is not touching the bone. The website, thebbqguru.com, has excellent temperature controllers that may even be viewed and controlled via the internet.
11. Place the pork on the grill.
12. Attach the probe that monitors the temperature of the egg. Close the egg.
13. Connect all probes to the WiFi controller. Set the temperature of the smoker to maintain 235 to 240 degrees.
14. Don’t open the egg until your butts reach the right temperature.
15. When the pork shoulders themselves reach a temperature of 200 deg. F., remove them from the smoker. Tightly cover the butts/pans with two sheets of heavy duty foil so that the heat does not escape.
16. Place the pork in the cooler for 2 hours.
17. Open one pan and tranfer the butt to the larger baking pan or cutting board. The meat will still be quite hot. Pull out the shoulder bone; it will be quite visible and will pull out easily.
18. Use your gloved hands to pull apart big chunks of the meat. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of the dry rub and 3 tablespoons of the bbq sauce over the large chunks of meat.
19. Pull the pork with your fingers. The rub and sauce will get incorporated as you pull.
20. Do a taste test. Add a little more rub and a little more bbq sauce if necessary then continue to pull apart the meat. You want just a bit of flavor on the pork. Repeat with the remaining butt.
21. Scoop your shredded pork into your serving dish.
SMOKING WOOD
My husband and I love using apple wood with pork.
WATER/DRIP PAN
We keep a drip pan in the egg WITHOUT WATER when we smoke pork shoulder butts. The pork has so much fat it will be moist. The bark that forms on the pork without water in the pan is amazing.
OUTDOOR TEMPERATURE
In the cold temps of the 20s and 30s, it takes longer to cook pork compared to temps in the 50s and warmer – just an FYI for scheduling purposes.
OVEN TEMPERATURE
We keep the egg at 240 degrees.
MEAT TEMPERATURE
We take the pork shoulder butts out when they reach 197 to 200 degrees – depending on how starving we are!
FOOD-SAFE, FOOD PREP AND HEAT-PROOF BBQ GLOVES
Barbeque gloves are invaluable when moving meats. To keep your hands clean while setting the raw pork on the grill, use a pair of food-prep gloves first then put on the heat-proof gloves. Once you’ve set the pork on the grill, remove the heat-proof gloves then remove the food-prep gloves. Your hands are now clean to do what you need to do.
FOIL WRAP
Once we take the pork out of the Egg, we place it in a disposal roasting pan. We cover it with a sheet of heavy-duty foil and place it in a cooler. Crimp the foil along the edge of the pan to seal tightly.
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