Is My Barbecue Ready Yet? Cooking Pork

[Karl Giles]

To many in Southeast US, the very meaning of barbecue is pork. Pork is
obviously a very generic term, and really could mean anything cooked
from a hog. However for most of us, in barbecue, cooking pork means
the shoulder, and for most, the desired cut from the shoulder is the
Boston Butt, and this is what we will cover in this article.
The selection process I use for this piece of meat, includes finding
one has the fat well marbled or dispersed throughout the cut.
Then, I start looking at weight, the higher the weight, the longer the
cook, so I like them right in the middle (8-9lbs). You can find very
small ones, which in my opinion are normally difficult to get tender
(4-6lb), and the very large ones (11-13lb) are difficult to cook
evenly.
OK, we have found our Boston butt, and it is now time to marinate the
piece of meat. The most popular way, and very acceptable way I might
add is to put a real good dry rub on, and let it marinate for 10 to 12
hours. A good rub, is the rub we assembled in our first segment in
this series "All BBQ Needs is a Good Rub!"
I like to use what is called a wet rub, which would mean to coat the
meat first with a liquid of some kind then apply the rub, or it could
mean to actually mix the liquid and the rub, and then apply. My
favorite way to approach this would be to apply yellow mustard, then
apply the rub. Just plain yellow
Mustard has 2 very desirable properties which make it a great choice
in your wet rub application. First, it contains vinegar, vinegar being
an acid will start to break down the surface of the meat, allowing the
dry rub flavor to penetrate deeper and quicker, then if applied on its
own. The other positive to yellow mustard is the consistency. Mustard
is more like a paste and it will hold the rub on the meat very
effectively, and the taste of it will actually blend well, and not be
distinguishable on its own.
You can also inject this cut, and add flavors this way to the meat,
such as apple juice, cider vinegar, etc.. This is a very acceptable
way to prepare this cut of meat, and if you are going to do so, you
would want to inject before you apply your wet rub. In this article,
we will add additional flavors after it is cooked. After we have
applied our wet rub, we will let marinate for 10 to 12 hours ideally,
but if your in a hurry, then I would recommend a minimum of 4 hours.
After the marinate time, about 30 minutes prior to putting it in your
cooker, apply another coating of the dry rub only. Then let the rub
work itself in for about 20 to 30 minutes.
Ok, we are ready to cook. I prefer to cook this cut slow, so I would
recommend to cook this between 225 - 250 degrees F. Next, once the
outside (the bark) reaches a nice dark color, I wrap the butt in heavy
duty aluminum, an ideal internal temperature of the Boston butt at
this point should be between 150 -170 degrees F (after about 4 to 5
hours), then, place it back into the cooker. I have a few reasons why
I like to wrap, first it allows you  retain the juices from the
butt to use for flavoring after its cooked, it keeps the butt moist,
and it will not lose as much moisture, and finally it reduces the
cooking time. When foiling at this point, it helps break down the
connective tissue in a quicker amount of time.
Remove the butt from the cooker once it has reached an internal temp
of 195 - 200 degrees F. You will now want to let it rest in a warm
environment (empty cooler, wrapped in a blanket, food holding box) for
at least an hour. Then remove from the foil (retaining the juice), and
pull, some like to use their hands, and others like to use forks, or a
handy tool referred to as bear paws. Once pulled you can now add more
flavor to your pork by adding BBQ Sauce, or the retained juices,
adding rub, etc. Then serve..

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