I have eaten a lot of pulled pork in my life. There are a lot of different ways to make it. If you ask me, they all boil down to two different kinds.
- Good pulled pork
- Bad pulled pork
This is the best I’ve had so far.
First off for this recipe, I’m assuming you have a smoker.
Next, you are going to need the pork. I prefer boston butts (pork shoulder) for pulled pork. Here are a couple pics of the ones I am using…….
Notice the ones I bought come 2 in a pack, so I am going to smoke both of them. Just so happens we are having a party as I do this. You only need one, I’ve had good luck freezing the other to use another time.
There are all kind of different ways to smoke meat. I have a sealed electric smoker, so putting any kind of barbeque sauce or anything on it before smoking just causes a real mess and doesn’t do anything for the meat in my opinion. So I usually just season it depending on what type of meat I’m using. Also in this case, the meat is going to end up being pulled, so I’ve never seen much of a reason to do much to the outside of it.
I’m only using olive oil and pepper on these. I just rubbed in the olive oil and then ground pepper all over. Really, you don’t need anything. I don’t use salt on pork.
If you had a different type of smoker you might do this a different way. I don’t really want to get into that for this recipe.
Next you want to insert your probe. I always use a digital probe when I smoke meat. Every cut of meat is completely different. You want to pull your smoked meat out at the exact time it is done, not guess by time.
I do this inside where I can see better and have a little more room. I let the probe dangle until I have the meat in the smoker then I plug it into the unit. I’ll be smoking these butts to 195 degrees.
Next, I’m going to get the smoker ready. I like to use wood chips wrapped in foil for the smoker I have. I’ll be using cherry chips for this pork. I wrap the chips in foil, poke some holes in the pouch with a sharp object to let the smoke out, and place it on the chip tray above the heating coil.
With this kind of smoker I basically lay the butts in there, shut the lid and check the probe every now and again. I’m going to set my heat to low. Again, every smoker is different so you are going to want to adjust accordingly for yours.
More or less I’m just going to sit back and wait now. You want to give yourself plenty of time to smoke. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took 12 hours or more for these to be done. I like to start early in the morning with large cuts of meat. I want this to be done in one day, but really we are not eating it until tomorrow.
To make a long story short, don’t look at your watch at 9am and say, “OK this will be done at 5pm”, because more than likely it won’t be. It might be done at 4pm, 5:23pm, 6:30, 10pm, you’re just never going to know. That’s what the probe is for, let it do it’s job.
OK, we are at 195!
Looking good!
Now, we want to let the butts cool. Since we are having a party, I’m going to put them right into the crock pot to cool.
I put the lid on to keep the moisture in. I let it sit this way for about an hour.
Time to pull the pork. You can use a lot of different tools to do this, I prefer to just use my hands for most of it. You might need a fork or something to get it going, but once you have it started, you should be able to pull it apart fairly easily.
You want to pull it all apart, and you basically want to throw away anything that you don’t want to eat in there. This is how you get rid of the fat and gristle and whatever else doesn’t look so good. Throw it away, give it to the dog, whatever. You want to be left with the best pieces of shredded pork. You will actually be surprised how much you get rid of from these butts, that’s why they are so cheap. But all of the stuff you are throwing away is what makes the rest of the smoked pork taste so good.
OK, it’s all shredded up in a container now. Like I said, we are having a party today, so I am keeping this in the crock pot to keep it warm. I washed the crock between letting the butts sit in it and shredding the pork to get rid of the extra grease. You don’t need to use a crock pot for anything.
Now for the most important part, the finishing sauce. I have found several different recipes for this and ended up combining a bunch of them for what I think is pretty easy and simple.
Here are the ingredients:
- 1 Cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 Teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
I warm the vinegar up in a pyrex measuring cup in the microwave for a short time. Then I stir in the brown sugar until it is well dissolved. Next, mix in the black and red pepper.
When the sauce is all mixed up I pour it over the pork, then I mix it all together with my hands.
To me, this sauce seems to kind of mellow everything out and also brings out the best in the pork. It doesn’t taste hot at all to me once you mix it in and let it sit for a bit. Feel free to adjust to your own taste.
Now all you need to do is serve on the buns or bread of your choice. This is also where you can add your favorite barbecue sauce to the sandwich or individual serving. I never mix barbecue sauce into the whole container of pork. It is so good you might not want to add any sauce at all.
Delicious!!!
Enjoy!!!