BBQ Pulled Pork

Meteor Bert: Well, it ain't a meteor.
Joe Dirt: Yeah, it is. It came out of the sky.

Meteor Bert: Well I'm sure it did but it ain't no meteor. It's a big ol' frozen chunk o' shit.

Joe Dirt: What?

Meteor Bert: Oh yeah, see them airplanes they dump their toilets 36,000 feet. The stuff freezes and falls to earth. We call 'em Boeing bombs.

Joe Dirt: No, that can't be. That's not what it is.

Meteor Bert: Oh, afraid so. See that peanut? Dead giveaway.

Joe Dirt: Uhhh, no, that's a space peanut.

Meteor Bert: No, afraid not. That just a big ol' frozen chunk of poopy.

Today I learned that no amount of clever camera work will make partially pulled pork look very good.

How to do it:
Get a pork butt, boston butt, shoulder roast, pork shoulder etc. Liberally salt your butt and let rest while you fire up your grill or smoker. I use charcoal briquettes with about 4-5 fist sized chunks of wood. If you're using a grill be sure to cook the butt indirectly.  You want to keep the temp between 200-350 degrees. Pork butts are forgiving so it doesn't really matter much. The higher the temp the shorter you window will be to pull it off the cooker when it's tender. After the cooker is ready go back and season the butt with the rub of your choice. Be very liberal with it. The rub creates a "Bark" that is the best part. It's the black stuff on the outside in the pics. Tastes like hot god if you didn't use a crappy rub. My go to butt rub I plan on a cooking time of an hour and a half pound but if this is your first time actually doing this on a smoker or grill plan on 2 hours per pound. It's going to vary depending on the meat itself and cooking temp and how many times you have to open your cooker. Avoid opening too much or it will take forever. Put you meat on. Now is a good time to drink a beer. It's basically required if you want to do this right.

Here is the secret to smoking a butt that people have a hard time with. Don't take it off until it's done. The internal temp doesn't matter so don't bother with a thermometer. It's going to be safe to eat hours before its done and the internal temp has nothing to do with it being tender. When you can stick a thermometer or skewer in it with little to no resistance its done. If you have a bone in butt it will be done when you can wiggle the bone and can pull it out of the meat. The internal temp might be at 190 degrees, it might be 220 degrees. Give yourself plenty of time and be patient.

Additional bbq nerd talk:
If you do use a thermometer you're going to notice that when the internal temp get to around the 170 degree mark it's going to "stall" for a while. At that point is when all the fat and connective tissue inside melts. Pull your meat from the cooker before and you're going to have a bad day with tough meat. Not bad really but you'll need to slice it cuz its never going to pull apart.