Friday night (more on that in a moment) I smoked my first pork shoulder. I bought a 9 lb. picnic shoulder not knowing that most pit master prefer the "butt" portion of the shoulder to the picnic.

But (pun intended) I had what I had…and it turned out delicious.

I started by trimming off quite a bit of fat (not all of it mind you) and the skin on the lower portion of the roast. I don’t have a scale that goes high enough to weigh this size roast, but I’m guessing I took at least a pound or two off of the bone-in piece of meat.

Next, I rubbed it with a mixture of brown sugar, Spanish smoked
paprika, salt, black pepper, garlic salt, shallot flakes, hot hungarian
paprika and ground mustard powder. I only used about half the rub on
the first application (Friday morning) and used the rest just before
putting it in the smoker (reserving a couple table spoons for the mop).

After letting the pork rest in the rub most of the day Friday, I
fired up the smoker and put the pork in at about 6:30 p.m. Friday
night. That’s right, Lenn was about to attempt his first over-night
cook.

What a breeze. Just before going to bed I applied the mop sauce (blend of apple juice and the rub).

This smoker is an amazing piece of equipment. It stayed hot, between
225 and 250 degrees all night and the only thing I had to do when I
woke up at 5 a.m. was add water to the water pan.
Around 9:30, the
internal temp had reached 190 degrees, which is the target for pulled
pork, so I pulled it out of the smoker (gently, the meat was pulled
back from the bone and very tender) and wrapped it in heavy duty foil
for a 45-minute resting session.

Now, I messed up here…I didn’t take any pictures after I pulled
the pork. Next time I definitely will. The smoke ring was a thing of
beauty and this was the best pulled pork I’ve ever had. Now, I’m not a
BBQ expert just yet, but I was very happy with how it turned out. As
were my party guests.

We served on hamburger rolls with homemad cabbage-green apple slaw
for crunch and a vinegar-mustard-onion sauce I thought would be
good…it was.

I was hoping to have pulled pork to last me the weekend…but we
finished most of it Saturday night, then polished it off for lunch
Sunday. Next time I’ll do cook two pork butts.