Payne County Rust Smoking a Whole Shoulder

Pork Shoulder is one of my favorite meats to smoke, and it sticks out in my mind as a great cut for a beginner due to its high resistance to drying out. The shoulder of a hog is generally divided into two different cuts, either Boston Butt or the Picnic Shoulder--the combo of the two being the Whole Shoulder. I'm going to take you step-by-step through the process I use to smoke a Whole Shoulder. Be warned - this could take over 15 hours! That said, let's continue...

First, let's start out at the packer. If your local super market has a butcher, he'll be able to provide you with an entire shoulder, if not many custom butchers will cut one for you on demand. I like to buy the shoulder untrimmed, and bone-in for two reasons. First, the bone provides a tremendous amount of flavor, as well as tying the meat together for support while cooking the cut. Second, leaving the bone in and the skin on the cut drops the price measurably.

Once the meat's home, and I'm ready to start cooking, I go ahead and light up some charcoal briquettes. Warning: There are enthusiastic purists that would never allow such inexpensive standards to enter their smoker. Their claim is that actual hardwood charcoal has a quicker lighting time, burns hotter and gives a more subtle, mild flavor to the cut. I agree with all three of these statements, and I usually only use real lump-charcoal when cooking ribs or other meats that will only be exposed to the heat for a short time. I find, however, that the use of processed briquettes is much more cost efficient when you're smoking something for 10, 15, or even 18+ hours. The real charcoal burns away too fast, and, although briquettes generally burn a little cooler, they still have plenty of heat to hold 250 degrees. (You can also smoke a shoulder over a wood-fire, but you'll have to wrap the product halfway through with foil to keep from getting to much smoke to the product. Keep in mind this will also drop your cooking time considerably)

Now into the kitchen... I like to trim all the skin off the end of the cut. This allows for more surface area to come in contact with the smoke which will provide us with the all-important bark--we'll discuss bark in a little while.

Next I grab a squeeze bottle of the cheapest plain, yellow mustard I can buy. This will act as a binder to hold the dry-rub spices on the meat, and is a very important step to developing the tasty black skin (bark) on the outside of the finished product. The advantage to using mustard is that, while it acts as a wonderful glue to bind the dry-rub to the meat, its flavor completely denatures after about 2 hours, leaving no residual mustard taste on the meat. I try and position the shoulder on a large cutting board, with the fat side down first--this allows me to flip the shoulder mustard-side down onto the smoker grate later, leaving the fat side up. I begin to paint it on the shoulder with a basting brush , being sure to cover it completely with a nice, thin coat of the yellow glue.

Next, dry rub this side with Rust Rub*. I'll usually put a fairly heavy coating onto the meat, and pat it into the mustard. Also, I do only one side now, I'll do the fat side once the meat is in the smoker.

*Rust Rub = 1part Payne County Rust : 2parts Brown Sugar

Alright, the important pre-treatment of the meat is now finished. Let's turn our attention back to the smoker. The charcoal should be white hot, and ready to do its thing. Grab your shoulder and flip it onto the grates with the fat side up (seasoned side down). Now brush the fat side with mustard and dry-rub it too.

Position the meat on the grate so that the small end (foot end) of the cut is facing away from the fire box. This end is smaller and tends to cook too fast, especially if the heat gets away from you. I then place the shoulder in the corner of the smoker as far from the fire as possible.

Next let's talk about smoke. Some people only use charcoal to light their wood and then use logs and split wood pieces solely throughout the rest of the cooking process. Others like to keep a large campfire burning on the side from which they can take actual burning coals to use in their fire box. Still others use charcoal the entire time, adding pieces of wood here and there for flavor. For the purpose of this article, we'll be using charcoal with a few pieces of wood thrown on now and then. (Again, if you're using a wood fire the whole time, be sure and wrap the product in foil after about six or seven hours to prevent the cut from becoming to bitter. This WILL drastically drop your cooking time, so keep an eye on the internal temperature of your shoulder!)

Smoker temperature should be kept between 225 and 250 degrees. If your smoker is made with less than 1/4 inch stock , then you might encounter problems holding an even temperature; if so add several bricks or pieces of scrap iron to the belly of your smoker in the cooking chamber to help maintain a steady temperature. Don't mess with pans of water--remember moist meat is fat meat, not watery meat. After the initial seven hours of adding charcoal and wood pieces, the only goal is to hold temperature by adding charcoal and adjusting your air intake and smoke stack cover until the internal temperature of the shoulder reached 194F in the deepest part of the muscle. When the thermometer reads 194F, I like to add a glaze of good BBQ sauce and cover with brown sugar.

Now you simply wait for the glaze to reduce some and the brown sugar to melt--about a half hour. When it's ready, bring it inside and let it rest in you oven (turned off) for about an hour.

After it rests, begin pulling it apart with two fork. I generally separate the blackened bark pieces from the tender insides so people can choose what they like. Serve alone or with your favorite BBQ sauce. People out east tend to eat it with a sauce made from vinegar, sugar, salt and red pepper. It sounds harsh to a Oklahoman, but I can assure you it's quite delicious. When served as a sandwich, pulled pork traditionally is served with coleslaw on the sandwich. Good luck smoking!!!

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