Pulled Pork

Degree of Difficulty: Relatively Easy
Prep Time: 15 min
Total Cook Time: 6-7 hours + an overnight resting period

In honor of the great American tradition that is the Superbowl, I thought that it would be appropriate to make something ‘barbequey’. We lack a smoker in the home kitchen so I can’t make truly authentic BBQ at home, but I like trying to come up with respectable facsimiles. The wife and I love pork baby-back ribs, but we just had ribs not too long ago so I was feeling ready to try something new, yet equally full of porky-goodness. I’ve always loved pulled pork sandwiches and asked myself ‘how hard could it be to make’. The answer is not hard at all, you just need time and seeing how I was just planning on sitting around and drinking beer all day anyway, I had all the time in the world to pull some pork.

The first thing to discuss here is the type of pork to use. BBQ pundits sing the praises of the pork shoulder. It’s relatively inexpensive, full of fat, and lends itself very well to a slow and forgiving cooking process. If I correctly understand the anatomy of the magical pig, the shoulder can be one of two parts of the pig. Imagine that you are looking at the side profile of a pig, from the head to about one-quarter down the length of its body…the shoulder butt (aka the Boston butt for whatever reason) would be the top, front part of the pig right behind the head going down about halfway (from a lengthwise perspective). The picnic shoulder is the bottom half of this part of the pig behind the head, and it ends usually towards the top of the front leg (in fact, this cut will usually include a small piece of the leg). I really hope that makes sense. I’m actually not sure which one is supposed to make a better product in the end. I had originally intended to use a Boston butt for this meal since I’ve often seen that cut at my local supermarket and had been encouraged by it’s relatively small size but they only had the picnic shoulder on this visit so I went with that. I’m pleased with my choice. Go big or go home, I suppose. I picked out a 6.65 lb beauty of a shoulder with a small, protruding piece of front leg and a nice fat cap. Here she is in all her glory:

Note the all-important beer, a necessity when handling meat of this size.

And here’s what the other side looks like:

The day before cooking, I started things off by making a dry rub. The dry rub contains:

1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp white pepper
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp dried powdered mustard
1 tsp dried powdered sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix all of this together in a bowl and apply liberally to both sides of the pork. After applying the dry rub, I wrapped the pork up nice and tight in few sheets of tin foil and put it to sleep in the bottom of my fridge for the night.

With the dry rub applied:

For the cooking process the next day I used:

1/4 cup apple cider
1/2 can of beer
1/2 cup water

The next day, an hour before cooking, pull the pork out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. After this hour, turn your oven on to 275 degrees. While the oven is preheating, it’s time to prepare the meat for cooking. Our prized roasting pan doesn’t fit into our oven because of its junior size, so I got creative. I once again resorted to the dutch oven and placed 2 small ramekins, upside down, at the bottom of it. After that I added the apple cider, beer, and water. I removed the pork from the tin foil and set it on top of the ramekins, skin side up. I used the ramekins to elevate the pork because I wanted it to dry roast without the aid of any liquid.

My goal here is to use the liquid in the bottom of the pan to catch any of the juices that come out of the meat. My thinking was that these juices might totally dry up or burn as a result of the long cooking process, so I used the liquid at the bottom of the pot to help prevent this from happening.  Be sure to stick a thermometer into the thickest part of the pork, which will be somewhere near, but not touching, the bone. Place this monstrosity into the oven and leave it there for at least 2 hours without disturbing it (i.e. opening the oven door). After 2 hours, I wound up turning the heat down to 250 degrees and I let it cook for 4 more hours, until the thermometer registered about 185 degrees. Truth be told, I should’ve left it in for another hour. The meat was still tender and succulent, but there were still a few spots at the very center that could’ve benefited from a little additional cooking. Due to the high fat content of this cut of meat and the low, slow cooking process, it’s hard to really overcook it. Here it is after roasting for 6 hours:

After the meat has cooked, I placed it on a sheet pan and let the meat cool and rest for about 30 min. When it is cool enough to handle, grab a fork in each hand and begin to shred, or pull the meat apart. You need to use the forks in order to get that nice pulled pork consistency. The meat should fall apart easily.

There is one final thing to address… what to do with all of the pan juices:

While the pork was cooking, I made some BBQ sauce and just poured all of this goodness in with the sauce while it was all cooking together.

Once the pork has been pulled, it is ready to serve. Stack some of it up on some white bread or an extra squishy hamburger roll, top it with some of that great sauce you made, and you are ready to go.

I can’t think of a better side dish than red potato salad to go along with the pork.