Smoked Pulled Pork Shoulder - The 5 hour CHEAT!

Smoked pork shoulder or smoked pork butt most commonly served as and called "pulled pork". It's one of the most commonly found styles of barbeque in America. It is also one of the most time consuming cuts of meat to cook. The general rule of thumb is you cook a pork shoulder at about an hour and a half for every pound of meat. That puts most pork shoulders at about 12 hours cook time. When you have kids and busy family lives who has time to sit around and watch, monitor and feed wood into a smoker for that long.

What if there were a way to cut that time in half? Or more? I asked myself that exact question and came up with an idea. This is some real BBQ Cheat Code stuff here. Smoke and instead of wrapping and slow cooking, why not put the pig under a little pressure? Who's got an Instant pot?

Watch as I made a full pan of pulled pork by smoking a full pork shoulder in 5 hours. Start to finish.

There are a few components you will need to do this cook. First is a rub, the other is an injection. So here's the recipes for what I used to do this particular cook.

Pork Rub:

• 1 cup (packed) brown sugar (I prefer dark, but any brown sugar is good)

• 2 tablespoons chili powder

• 2 tablespoons dry mustard

• 2 tablespoons onion powder

• 2 tablespoons garlic powder

• 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper

  • 2 tablespoons kosher salt

• 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper

Mix all the ingredients of the rub in a large mason jar or shaker container and use generously. I usually use regular yellow mustard on the meat to help the rub stick better, but you can also use honey, syrup, or any type of oil. I like to mix rubs in a mason jar and keep what is leftover sealed and stored in the cupboard for future use.

To keep the meat juicy and intensify the flavor I also inject my pork shoulder with a liquid injection

Hog Injection:

• 2 cups apple juice

• 1 cup apple cider vinegar

• 1/2 cup melted butter

• 1/4 cup maple syrup

• 1.5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

• 1 tablespoon of rub

• 1 tablespoon of Louisiana style hot sauce.

Mix all ingredients in a jar or bowl and inject into the meat in a grid pattern using an injection syringe or other device.

Just like there are many ways to skin and animal, there's many ways to cook BBQ. This is just one simple method that I've figured out to turn out great tasting food perfect for a party that doesn't take all day to make. Afterall, time is pretty valuable. Spend what you have doing the things you love, with those that you love.