Here's a whole mess of shoulders coming out of the smoker at the Dinosaur Barbecue in Rochester, NY. Notice how the colors of these two 5 pound butts differ. They were rubbed the same and cooked simultaneously at the same temperature with precisely the same amount of wood. The one on the left was cooked on a gas grill set up with a water pan. The other was cooked on a charcoal smoker, a Weber Smokey Mountain, also with a water pan. Both tasted great. The one on the left (gas) had a bit of a sheen and bright pink highlights. It tasted lively, with sexy bacon undertones. The one on the right (charcoal) was dull brown with dark edges. It had a heavier, husky fireplace scent and flavor, more like traditional Southern barbecue. I ended up mixing the two together! Here's a butt ready to be pulled. It has a brown, spicy, and crunchy exterior "bark" from the rub, a deep pink smoke ring with a bacony flavor from a long slow cook in smoke, and a tender, juicy, moist middle. Here's a small butt being pulled apart. The right hand is on the bone extending from the shoulder blade buried in the butt. Here's the blade bone removed from the butt. You can see the shank part at the top protruding from the butt on the left below. If the meat is properly cooked this bone should pull out easily with two fingers and have almost no meat stuck to it.

Cook today, serve tomorrow So you're going to the Grandma's on Saturday, but you don't want to spend the day cooking. Cook your pork on Friday. Cook it all the way until done. Place in a pan like the one above, pull it (Bear Paws are great for this job), splash with a bit of apple juice, cover tightly with foil, and chill. On Saturday, put the covered pan in a cooler and head over the river and through the woods. About 90 minutes before dinner put the covered pan in an oven and reheat at 225-250°F until warm. Build your sammiches and top with warm sauce. Don't forget to let me know what time to be there.

How the champions do it For home cooks, the easiest thing to do is trim off excess fat and cook the Boston Butt whole. But competition cook Candy Weaver of BBQr's Delight thinks the meat between her fingers, above is the best. She calls it the "Money Muscle", so she prepares her butts a bit oddly. She goes to the opposite side and just above the blade bone there is a vein of fat and silverskin. She cuts along this seam and removes them. Her butt is then butterflied into three sections with the Money Muscle sticking up. She cooks it standing like this and when it is done she slices the money muscle and pulls the rest. I do not recommend this method for home cooks.

With smoke woven through shards of moist meat, potent bits of strongly seasoned crust mixed in, and a gentle splash of barbecue sauce. And it is perfect for feeding large crowds, especially because it is cheap.

The best pulled pork is made from a hunk of meat that is woven with flavorful fat and connective tissue loaded and not much good for anything else. That's the story of the origin of Southern barbecue. A cheap cut of meat that the slave owners didn't want, that, as the slaves discovered, when cooked low and slow, when the fat and collagens melt the muscle fibers are mad tender, moist, and succulent. Like buttah. And the process, which can take 8 to 12 hours or more, is the quintessence of Southern smoke roasting. Lazy, slow, easy, fragrant. You set up a lawn chair, sip a cup of coffee as you put the meat on in the morning, as the sun gets high, you switch to cool refreshing beer, mid-day a mint julep refreshes the palate, and as it approaches doneness, with the sun setting, you switch to straight Bourbon.

Pulled pork is a great place for the beginner to start experimenting with smoke cooking. A big clod of meat is a lot more forgiving than ribs. And you can do it right on practically any grill with a lid.

In North Carolina there is a controversy, to put it mildly, over what part of the hog to use for pork sandwiches. In the eastern part of the state, most joints cook the whole hog, chop the meat, and mix it all together. They feel that the unique textures and flavors of the different muscles makes the meat more interesting. They love going to "pig pickins", meals where a hog is cooked, boned, chopped, doused with sauce, and displayed in its skin on a buffet so folks can pick the meat they want with tongs.

Inland and in the foothills of North Carolina, the preference is for shoulder meat. Frankly, I'm with them. Pork shoulder is the cut that is best for texture and flavor, and it has the added benefit of being inexpensive, often under $2 per pound.

A full shoulder can weigh 8 to 20 pounds and has two halves, the "picnic ham" and the "Boston butt". The picnic ham, runs from the shoulder socket through to the elbow. A picnic ham is not a true ham. Hams come from the rear legs only. The picnic usually weighs from 4 to 12 pounds.

The top half of the shoulder, from the the dorsal of the animal near the spine through the shoulder blade, has too many names: Boston butt, pork butt, butt, shoulder butt, shoulder roast, country roast, and the shoulder blade roast. Calling it a butt may seem ironic because it comes from the front of the hog. No ifs ands or butts, it makes the best sandwich meat on the hog.

Look for Berkshire. Berkshire hogs are a "heritage" breed, a breed that became scarce when the pork promoters moved to leaner pork to promote it as "the other white meat". Berkshires (and Duroc and other heritage breeds) tend to have darker, fattier, and more flavorful meat. The best pulled pork I ever had was a Berkshire served without sauce by Barry Sorkin of Smoque BBQ in Chicago. It looked like turkey dark meat and was incredibly tender and flavorful. It is not on their menu yet because it is expensive, but one can hope.

Why is it called a butt? Some say that because, when trimmed, the butt is barrel shaped, and barrels were often called butts by English wine merchants. Others say that they are called butts because they were shipped in barrels. A reder has suggested that a butt is a name for a joint in woodworking, and the shoulder is a joint area. One can only speculate why it is called the Boston butt, but my friends in New York have offered some unkind suggestions.

Butts can weigh from 4 to 14 pounds and they usually have shoulder blade bones in them although some butchers remove the bones and sell "boneless butts". There is some evidence that the bone adds flavor, so I buy bone-in butts. Butts are often are tied with string because they fall apart easily. It is not unusual to find partial butts in the 4 to 5 pound range. These small cuts are especially nice because they cook quicker and there is a lot of the crispy, crusty surface, called bark, or Mrs. Brown by aficionados.

Pulled Pork Recipe

Yield. 3.5 pounds of meat, enough for 10 generous sandwiches. Leftovers freeze nicely.
Preparation time. 10 minutes to trim and rub the meat, and up to 24 hours to let it marinate in the rub.
Cooking time. Allow 8 to 12 hours or 1.5 to 2 hours per pound at 225°F. If you kick the temp up to 280°F, you can cut cooking time to about 1 hour per pound. Allow plenty of advance time and if necessary, use a beer cooler as a faux Cambro to hold the meat
Pulling time. 30 minutes if you do it with your fingers, 10 minutes with Bear Paws

Toolkit
1 grill or smoker with lots of fuel
1 digital meat thermometer with a probe and a cable
1 alarm clock
1 lawn chair
1 good book
6 pack of beer
1 pair of shades
plenty of food themed tunes
sun tan lotion

Ingredients
1 pork butt, about 5 pounds
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1/3 cup Meathead's Memphis Dust
2 cups wood for smoke
10 kaiser rolls or hamburger buns
1 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce

Do this
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 at right. 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 in the rub don't dissolve. Cover your butt (ahem) generously with Meathead's Memphis Dust. Let it sit in the fridge for an hour or three.

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 cooker to about 225°F and set it up for 2-zone indirect smoke cooking (cooker setups are described in the technique section of this site). 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 250°F. If it goes up to 300°F, don't worry. Butt is forgiving. But try to keep it down under 250°F. 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 150°F. 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 170°F 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 190°F, 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 190°F, 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 look shiny 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 190°F but the meat is still not tender, reduce the heat in your cooker to about 190°F 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 200°F 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 190°F oven. Do not add sauce while it is on the cooker. That comes after you pull it, it at all.

The fast method. After two hours of smoking at about 225°F 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 350°F for another 2 to 3 hours or until the temp hits 190°F 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 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 150°F. If you are more than two hours from mealtime, wrap it in foil to keep it from drying out and hold it at 150°F. 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 145°F. 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.

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 with no sauce. 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 unmatched in the culinary world. It is the quintessence of porkdom. Serve it nekkid. Urge people to taste it nekkid. Then, if they wish, a little sauce on the top.

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. They soak in nicely and, if you go easy, really compliment the flavor. Try my Lexington Dip. or my East Carolina Kiss & Vinegar. 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. 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.

Pulled Pork Reuben. Serve it on thick bread with sauerkraut, thousand island dressing, and melted Swiss cheese.

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, jalapeño pepper, shredded cheese.

Throughout South Carolina, barbecue restaurants serve something called hash. The recipe varies from place to place, but it typically is a stew of ground leftover barbecue pork, pork liver, onion, and mustard based barbecue sauce, served over rice. Here, Jackie Hite of Hites Bar B Que in Batesburg shows us one of his two huge cast iron cauldrons in which he cooks his hash. It holds about 70 gallons.

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.

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 sautéd 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.

Joe Wells in Arkansas says he puts the leftovers in "Brunswick stew, baked beans, mixed with scrambled eggs, hash, the list goes on and on."

Sandra Aylor of Memphis sez: "With the leftovers, I like BBQ spaghetti or BBQ pizza".

Buzz in Wisconsin sez: "leftovers are made into tacos and enchiladas".

This page was revised 5/26/2010

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NOMINEE: 2010 World Food Media Awards MEMBER: International Association of Culinary Professionals MEMBER: Kansas City Barbeque Society MEMBER: National Barbecue Association Important Info About This Website AmazingRibs.com is all about the Zen of barbecue, grilling, and outdoor cooking, with great BBQ recipes and techniques: Barbecue baby back ribs, spareribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, steak, burgers, chicken, smoked turkey, lamb, barbecue sauces, rubs, and side dishes, with the net's best buying guide to barbecue smokers and grills. It is written, photographed, illustrated, and coded solely by Meathead. My philosophy about food is simple. First of all it must taste great. It must be easy to make and emphasize fresh seasonal products with a minimum of processed ingredients. I think that people need to know why as well as how, and that there are no rules in the bedroom or dining room. About Product Reviews and Meathead's Hot Stuff Awards. Meathead's Hot Stuff Awards are highly recommended products that I have tested personally or that have been tested by reliable sources. Awards are based on features, quality, and value. Rest assured that when I recommend a product, it is really because I like it, not because someone has paid me to say so or because the company is an advertiser or sponsor. I purchase most products I review although occasionally suppliers send me samples. About links on this site. Other than clearly marked ads, links and recommendations on this site are all products, services, and websites I truly admire, and are never paid endorsements. Your suggestions are always welcome. If you would like me to link to your website, click here to read my links policy first. Advertising policy. I do not accept ads from products that I review such as grills, charcoal, etc. Click here for more on my advertising policy. Meathead's Personal Privacy Promise. I promise to never sell or distribute any info about you individually without your express permission, and I promise not to, ahem, pepper you with email or make you eat spam. Click here for more details of my privacy promise. Disclaimer. The information on this website is for educational purposes only. All material within comes without warranties of any kind. I am human, and capable of mistakes, so I make no guarantees as to the accuracy, completeness, or safety of the information. Under no circumstances am I liable for any damages that result from use of the site (so you can't sue me if you burn your tongue on hot ribs, or get a tummy ache, OK?). Copyright © 2010 by Meathead. Unless otherwise noted, all text, recipes, photos, and code are owned by Meathead and fully protected by US copyright law. This means you need my written permission to republish or distribute anything on this website. But I'm easy. To get reprint rights, click here. Note: Some photos of commercial products such as grills were provided by the manufacturers and under their copyright.

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