Velox
Well-known member
Okay now for the end result. I pickup up a pork shoulder at my local Costco.
I was a little nervous at first because the butcher at Costco said it was one giant 15 lb piece. He was wrong:
The first thing I did was a brine. I wanted to use pickling/canning salt, but I was unable to find any, so I went with Kosher salt (13 oz) and put it in a blender to get that powdery texture of canning salt. Then I added 8 oz of Molasses and finally 2 quarts of water.
Stirred it all up and it ended up looking like something I did NOT want to put this butt into.....but I did anyway.
I let it sit in the brine, covered, with a plate on it (Pork floats) for 12 hours. After that, I took it out, patted it dry and put on the Simply Marvelous Spicy Apple Rub from BPS.
Once coated I covered it again and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight until I was ready to smoke (about 9 hours).
THE SMOKE:
I woke up about 4am on the 4th, took the meat out of the refrigerator to lose a little bit of it's chill. I lit the ECB, added my Hickory chunks (Which have been soaking overnight) and waited for it to get to temperature (Between 225 and 250). I also added a little bit more rub. I got the meat on the ECB at about 5AM. I filled the water tray with just water this time.
I maintained the fire for the first 6 hours refusing to look at the meat (Holy S**t Kingsford bb produced a ton of ash!). At the 6 hour mark I took a look...and it looked great...nice bark. I then sprayed it once per hour with a mixture of apple juice and apple cider vinegar. At 10.5 hours I hit 190 degrees.
Took it off the grill, wrapped it in foil and right into the cooler for another hour. Out of the cooler and to into my dual wielding forks produced this:
Tasted great, but to be honest was a tad on the dry side once it was pulled and sat for a couple of minutes. I rectified this the next day when I took the leftovers to another party. I reheated it in the oven covered with foil at 300 degrees after I added some apple juice to it. Came out amazing.
So I guess that's it, thanks to everyone who gave me advice and special thanks to all those who saw potential in the ECB and decided to post their mods. Hopefully this thread will help/inspire someone else to do the same.
I was a little nervous at first because the butcher at Costco said it was one giant 15 lb piece. He was wrong:
The first thing I did was a brine. I wanted to use pickling/canning salt, but I was unable to find any, so I went with Kosher salt (13 oz) and put it in a blender to get that powdery texture of canning salt. Then I added 8 oz of Molasses and finally 2 quarts of water.
Stirred it all up and it ended up looking like something I did NOT want to put this butt into.....but I did anyway.
I let it sit in the brine, covered, with a plate on it (Pork floats) for 12 hours. After that, I took it out, patted it dry and put on the Simply Marvelous Spicy Apple Rub from BPS.
Once coated I covered it again and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight until I was ready to smoke (about 9 hours).
THE SMOKE:
I woke up about 4am on the 4th, took the meat out of the refrigerator to lose a little bit of it's chill. I lit the ECB, added my Hickory chunks (Which have been soaking overnight) and waited for it to get to temperature (Between 225 and 250). I also added a little bit more rub. I got the meat on the ECB at about 5AM. I filled the water tray with just water this time.
I maintained the fire for the first 6 hours refusing to look at the meat (Holy S**t Kingsford bb produced a ton of ash!). At the 6 hour mark I took a look...and it looked great...nice bark. I then sprayed it once per hour with a mixture of apple juice and apple cider vinegar. At 10.5 hours I hit 190 degrees.
Took it off the grill, wrapped it in foil and right into the cooler for another hour. Out of the cooler and to into my dual wielding forks produced this:
Tasted great, but to be honest was a tad on the dry side once it was pulled and sat for a couple of minutes. I rectified this the next day when I took the leftovers to another party. I reheated it in the oven covered with foil at 300 degrees after I added some apple juice to it. Came out amazing.
So I guess that's it, thanks to everyone who gave me advice and special thanks to all those who saw potential in the ECB and decided to post their mods. Hopefully this thread will help/inspire someone else to do the same.
