Weber Grill Pork Shoulder for Pulled Pork

Had a down day for cooking. Posting on this site I though about my days bringing my 22" weber down to baja to cook many meals. Here's my baja recipe for pulled pork.

Pork shoulder rub
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/3 cup garlic salt
1/3 cup kosher salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon oregano leaves
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
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Pork injection
1/2 cup apple juice
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup salt
2 tablespoons Worcestershire
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Coleslaw
2 lb head of cabbage (shredded)
½ medium red onion
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp celery seed
1 cup white vinegar
2/3 cup oil

Shed cabbage like below. Put red onion and cabbage in a large mixing bowl. In a sauce pan heat all the other ingredients until boiling. Pour hot wet mixture over the cabbage & onion. Mix well and occasionally for the nest two hours. Then with your hand remove the coleslaw from its wet bath into a gallon ziplock bag. Discard the remaining juice or reserve for another use. The cabbage will shrink more than a half in volume.

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Preparation
Three day ahead of time inject a 7 lb pork shoulder with the injection recipe above. Slather the pork shoulder with mustard. Sprinkle ½ the rub above all over the pork shoulder. Wrap with plastic wrap and seal in heavy duty aluminum foil. Place in the cooler for three days (or less). Remove from cooler and allow to get to room temperature (2hrs). Sprinkle with ½ of the remaining rub.

Fire up 50 coals and place in a pile in the front of a 22” Weber grill. Place pork shoulder as far away from the coals as possible. Stick a thermometer in the thickest part of the meat. Place 4 oz hickory chunks on the hot coals. Put lid on and vents all the way open. The temperature could go up to 500 degrees. That’s ok cuz you want to burn the outside of the pork to make a geode of meat (shear). After an hour add 5 coals and another 4 oz of wood. Continue doing this until the pork gets to 195 degrees. The temperatures will be approximately 450-500 degrees for the 1st hour, 400 degrees for the next 3 hours and about 300-350 until the meat is done. Should be done in 5-6 hours.



Then place in a pan. Heat up one cup apple juice or beef broth or a combo of the two with the rest of the rub. Heat the broth to almost boiling. Place in the pan with the meat. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and (1) place it in a cooler and wrap with towels for up to 4 hours, (2) put it in a 185 degree oven until ready to eat or (3) let it rest for 30 minutes then pull.



To serve pour out the juice and reserve. Then (1) pull it apart in chunks or (2) shred it apart with two forks making sure to mix the blacken outer meat with the soft interior meat.

Serve with coleslaw, sweet pickles, reserved juice, a Texas BBQ sauce and buns or bread.

Tonites dinner.



A few hours later



[Edited on 2-18-2012 by Lobsterman]

Great job, and man you "cook" clean .. the kitchen is spottless ...

Really liked your selection of BBQ sauce ... two good states for BBQ .. Texas and NC

Not putting others down... just saying TX and NC have good BBQ ..

Looking good ... ya sure you can eat all that ..

I will try this for sure when I get back home from Miami! Looks so very good!!

Thanks for the recipes...

[Edited on 2-19-2012 by Bob H]