Pulled pork, May 11

From Evernote:

Pulled pork, May 11

Last Friday, we had some friends over to play Arkham Horror. It will come as no surprise to y'all that I treated this as an opportunity to fire up the smoker. This time, I decided to try pulled pork.

I used Meathead's recipe from amazingribs.com, because his recipe for brisket had come out well. Since we were hosting on Friday evening,  I planned to cook the pork overnight instead and refrigerate it instead of serving it fresh from the smoker. Meathead's recipe led me to expect about eight hours for my four-pound pork butts, and I wanted ten hours, so I set the smoker to 210° instead of 225° to make it take a bit longer.

I smoked with a mixture of apple and cherry wood. (I meant to use hickory, but I couldn't find my hickory chips.) I started at 10pm and added some chips every half hour until midnight.

At 8 the next morning, the temperature was about 175°, significantly less than the 190° I was aiming for. I turned up the smoker for 225° and let it go; it took another two hours to reach 190°. (I didn't use the Texas Crutch this time, because I was trying to make it take longer.)

This is what it looked like when I opened the smoker:

I pulled it apart with a couple of forks. This picture shows off the mixture of dark, crusty exterior and pale moist inner flesh. The Lexicon of Real American Food calls these “Mr. Brown and Miss White.”

In the afternoon, we heated the pork up in a slow cooker, made a big pan of macaroni and cheese, and served dinner.

The results were phenomenal. Though I hate to say it, the pulled pork came out better than last month's brisket. The meat was rich and succulent with a smooth smoke flavor. We will definitely have to make this again.