Pulled Pork

By CorbettCook

For big parties I will smoke 3 or more butts, pull them, and then put them in a big pan. I add about 1/2 cup of water per 5 pounds, and about 1 tablespoon of butter per pound. I carry it to the party in a cold cooler. When I get to the party I heat it in a slow cooker. Occasionally I will add the sauce before I leave to make sure it is moist and easy to serve. Just don't use so much sauce that you can't taste the meat and the smoke.
Serving pulled pork
There are so many wonderful ways to serve pulled pork. It is marvelous just piled warm and steaming on a plate. So many people make the mistake of dumping a bottle of sauce over the meat. Please don't. The taste unadorned and unadulterated, hot from the smoker, is the quintessence of porkdom. Serve it nekkid. Urge people to taste it nekkid. Then, if they wish, they can put a little sauce on the top.


Here are a few other suggestions
The classic pulled pork sammich. Mound it high on a nice bun. Top it with a small amount of your favorite sauce. This is where the Carolina vinegar and pepper sauces really shine. Here's my recipe for Lexington Dip, and here's my recipe for East Carolina Kiss & Vinegar. They soak in nicely and, if you go easy, really compliment the flavor. Try my Lexington Dip. I also love the mustard sauces like my South Carolina Mustard Sauce but my favorite is my herbaceous Grownup Mustard Sauce. I like my pulled pork with chopped raw onion mixed in. My wife likes her onion grilled and on top. Sometimes we chop up raw apple and mix it in, too. Sometimes I slice the roast rather than pull it and douse it with a classic Texas sauce, which is thin and more like a gravy. It lets the meat flavor come through without masking it. I know folks who like to garnish it with sliced tomato, pickle chips, and a raw onion slice.


Mound it on a bun with slaw, South Carolina style. In many places in the South folks often crown a pulled pork sandwich with slaw (use my Creamy Deli Slaw). Barbecue champ and instructor Jack Waiboer of Charleston tops his slaw with dill pickle chips and thin sliced Vidalia onions, and calls it the "Carolina Crusher."

With melted cheese.My BBQ buddy Mark Stevens in NJ says he takes "A nice bit of pulled pork, a thin slice of onion, a slice of pepper jack cheese, a good glug of Hoboken Eddies Mean Green Roasted Pepper Sauce" and puts it all on buttered white bread. He then places the sandwich in pie iron, butter side out, and cooks it over a fire until golden brown and the cheese is melted.

Carnitas.Bill Martin, a friend in Texas, likes to cut smoked butt into 1/2" pieces and fry them in a pan with some of the fat that dripped off. When crisp they make wonderful carnitas tacos, he says.

Rollups. Roll it in a tortilla with chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, jalapeno pepper, shredded cheese.

Leftovers
I always cook up more pulled pork than I'll use. I mix the leftovers with a bit of barbecue sauce, and freeze it in two-serving portions in zipper bags. The sauce prevents freezer burn. Pop one in the microwave and you've got a great emergency meal for two. Pulled pork the following day can be heated in the microwave. But it will be a bit drier than the first day, so bring back some life with a splash of water, apple juice, or barbecue sauce.
- I love to make a killer app with pulled pork: jalapeno poppers. Split jalapeno peppers in half, scoop out the seeds and hot ribs with a spoon, and chop off the stems. Mix 1 part leftover pork with sauce and 2 parts fresh chevre or another cream cheese, and fill the peppers. Grill over a medium-low heat until the cheese is soft, and the peppers begin to char.

- Try adding pulled pork to nachos.

- In South Carolina, leftover pulled pork is often used in making "hash". The recipe varies from place to place, but it is typically a stew of pulled pork, pork liver, onion, and mustard sauce, served over white rice. Sounds plebeian, but I think it's ambrosia.

- Another nice dish is pulled pork in Louisiana Dirty Rice. Classic Dirty Rice is white rice mixed with cooked chicken livers and giblets and the "holy trinity", which is sauteed green pepper, onion, and celery. But you can substitute or add pulled pork and amp it up.

- Here's something fun: Plop some on top of a baked potato.

Ingredients

• 1 pork butt, about 5 pounds
• 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup pork spice rub, click here for my recipe for Meathead's Memphis Dust
• 2 cups wood for smoke
• 10 kaiser rolls or hamburger buns
• 1 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce (I prefer the South Carolina mustard sauces).

Details

Servings 10
Adapted from huffingtonpost.com

Preparation

Step 1

1) Trim most of the of fat from the exterior of the meat but not all of it. Leave no more than 1/8". Some folks like to leave it all on hoping it will melt and baste the meat, but I want the seasonings on the meat, not on the fat, and I want the meat to get a crunchy flavorful, seasoned bark. Most of the butts I cook are 4 to 6 pounds, pretty well trimmed, and tied with butcher's twine to keep them from falling apart. If yours is not held tied, hogtie it something like the picture. Don't worry if it isn't fancy, you're going to throw it out, just rope it so it doesn't fall apart.

2) Rinse and thoroughly dry the meat. Oil the meat with vegetable oil, coating all surfaces. This will help the rub adhere and also help dissolve the oil soluble flavors in the rub and carry it into the meat. Some folks like to slather it with yellow mustard first. I have tried it this way and I do not think it does anything noticeable. Besides, mustard does not contain oil, so oil soluble flavors don't dissolve. Cover your butt (ahem) generously with rub. Use my recipe for Meathead's Memphis Dust. Yes, it has sugar and salt in it, but they are helpful in forming the flavorful crust. Let it sit in the fridge for a few hours or, better still, overnight.

3) Insert a digital probe like the Maverick ET-73 and position the tip right in the center. Make sure it is not touching the bone or within 1/2" of the bone. Fire up the grill or smoker to about 225F and set it up for 2-zone indirect smoke cooking (click here for gas grill setup, click here for charcoal grill setup, click here for Weber Smokey Mountain or bullet smoker setup, and click here for offset barrel smoker setup). Put the meat on, right on the grate, not in a pan, add 1/2 cup of wood chips, pellets, or chunks to the coals, and go drink a coffee. Go make your sauce, slaw, and beans. Go watch the game. Then cut the lawn. Wash the windows. Smoke a cigar. Make love to your spouse. Unfold the lawn chair and read a book with a beer. You've got plenty of time. Just check your cooker every hour or so to make sure the fuel is sufficient and you are holding at 225 to 250F. If it goes up to 300F, don't worry. Butt is forgiving. But try to keep it down under 250F. Add additional doses of wood, 1/4 cup at a time, every 30 minutes for the first two hours. Don't open the cooker to spritz or mop the meat (read my article on Basting, Spritzing, and Mopping). Opening the lid only screws up the temperature and humidity in the cooker so keep it to a minimum.

Allow 1.5 to 2 hours per pound but it might take more or less. Each hunk of meat is different, and rain, wind, ambient temp will impact cooking times. The temp will rise steadily to about 140 to 150F. and slow down for a looooonnnng while as moisture moves to the surface and the collagens turn to liquid. It might hold there for an hour or more. This is called "the stall" or "the zone". Don't panic and don't crank the heat. Be patient. Magic is happening. Click here for more about meat science.
Option. Most competition cooks use a technique called the Texas Crutch. Some will wrap their butts tightly in a couple of layers of heavy duty foil when it hits about 170F or the color they like, add about 1 cup of apple juice or some other secret elixir to the package, and put it back in the cooker. Others put the meat in an aluminum pan on a roasting rack to keep it out of the liquid, add the apple juice, and cover it tightly with foil. The process allows the meat to cook in a high humidity environment and that seems to tenderize it a bit. Then, when the temp hits about 190F, they'll take off the foil, put it back in to firm up the surface, and then it's on to the next step. The Crutch is a nice touch, and it works, but most of the time, I don't bother.

4) Is it ready? When it hits 190F, it may be ready, and it may not be ready. But it's time to check. The exterior should be dark brown. Some rubs and cookers will make the meat look black like a meteorite, but it is not burnt and it doesn't taste burnt. There may be glistening bits of melted fat. On a gas cooker it may have some pink. If there is a bone, use a glove or paper towel to protect your fingers and wiggle the bone. If it turns easily and comes out of the meat, the collagens have melted and you are done. If there is no bone, use the "stick a fork in it method". Insert a fork and try to rotate it 90 degrees. If it turns with only a little torque, you're done. If it's not done, close the lid and go drink a mint julep for 30 minutes. If the internal temp hits 190F but the meat is still not tender, reduce the heat in your pit to about 190F and hold it there for as much as another hour. It should then be done. If not, you've just got a tough butt. Wrap tough butts in aluminum foil and let them go for another hour, but don't take them above 200F or else the muscle fibers will start giving up moisture and toughen. If you can't control the temp on your cooker, wrap the meat in heavy duty foil and move it indoors into a 190F oven.

The fast method. After two hours of smoking at about 225F with lots of smoke, put the meat on a roasting rack in a roasting pan and pour a cup of water or apple juice into the pan. Cover the meat with foil and fasten the foil tightly to the edges of the pan so the meat is in a nice enclosed environment. Roast in the oven at 350F for another 2 to 3 hours or until the temp hits 190F and it passes the fork test, above.

5) When it is finally ready, go ahead, take a taste. You should notice a thick flavorful crust, and right below you'll see the telltale "smokering", the bright pink color caused by smoke mixing with combustion gases and moisture. Let it rest for 30 to 60 minutes. If you are more than an hour from mealtime, you can leave the meat on the cooker with the heat off or put it in the indoor oven and hold it there by dialing the temp down to about 150F. If you are more than two hours from mealtime, wrap it in foil to keep it from drying out and hold it at 150F. If you are taking the meat to a party, use a faux cambro, which is nothing more than a tight plastic beer cooler in which you can hold the meat. Leave the probe in the meat, wrap the hunk tightly in foil, wrap the foil with more towels, and put it the whole thing in the cooler. Fill up the cooler with more towels, blankets, or newspaper to keep the meat insulated. Hang the thermometer cord over the lid of the cooler, and close it tightly. Plug the cord into the readout and make sure it never drops below 145F. Just know that this technique will soften the bark and change the texture of the meat very slightly.

6) About 30 minutes before sit down, put the meat into a large pan to catch drippings. Pull the clod apart with Bear Paws, gloved hands, or forks. Discard big chunks of fat. If you wish you can slice it or chop it like they do in North Carolina, but I think you lose less moisture by pulling it apart by hand since the meat separates into bundles of muscle fibers, hence the name pulled pork. Try not to eat all the flavorful crusty bits when you are doing the pulling, and distribute them evenly throughout. Make sure you save any flavorful drippings and pour them over the meat.

Skip the marinade, injections, and brines. Some folks like to inject butt with an internal marinade. Typically they will do something like mix about 4 tablespoons of their rub with 1 cup of warm apple juice and pump it deep into the meat. Some even use chicken stock. I don't bother. I think this cut is moist enough on its own and injecting can mask the flavor of the pork. When I am judging, and the meat tastes more like apple juice than pork, I mark it down. Most competition cooks inject, but if you cook it properly, you don't need to inject. Marinating will not penetrate a big hunk very far, so don't bother. I love brining pork chops, but to penetrate such a large thick hunk of flesh, you would need to brine the meat for more than a day and even then the penetration would be shallow and uneven. Use a good rub, and let the smoke flavor it. Keep it simple.

For more crust. Purists will fall out of their lawn chairs when they read this, but a good shortcut is to buy large butts, about 10 pounds, and cut the meat into hunks of about 5 pounds. This will give you more surface area with more crunchy, tasty bark, more smoke penetration, and significantly speed the cooking. The tradeoff is that the meat will lose a little moisture.