Carolina pulled pork
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Pork
- 4 1/2 kg bone-in pork shoulder, Boston butt, fat cap on, bone in; boneless loses you the best doneness test there is rounded
Rub
- 40 g kosher salt rounded
- 40 g coarse black pepper rounded
- 30 g sweet paprika rounded
- 20 g dark brown sugar, a little only; over ten hours more than this will burn rounded
- 10 g garlic powder rounded
- 10 g onion powder rounded
- 5 g cayenne rounded
- 15 g yellow mustard, as a binder for the rub; you will not taste it rounded
To finish
- 300 ml Carolina vinegar sauce, the recipe on this site, or cider vinegar with chilli flakes rounded
- to taste hickory or oak wood rounded
Method
Method
- Leave the fat cap on and score it in a diamond pattern, about 5 mm deep, cutting into the fat and not the meat. Smear the whole shoulder with the mustard: it does nothing for flavour and everything for making the rub stick.
- Rub it heavily, all sides and into the scores. Rest it in the fridge uncovered overnight if you have the time, which dries the surface and gives better bark.
- Smoker at 120°C, clean thin smoke, hickory or oak. Fat cap up. Put it on and leave it completely alone for the first 5 hours.
- Expect the stall. Around 70°C the temperature will sit still for hours. Push through it or wrap in foil or paper to speed it up. Wrapping costs you some bark and saves you two hours.
- Cook to about 95°C and, more importantly, to the bone. Grip the blade bone and twist. If it slides out clean with nothing clinging, it is ready. If it resists at all, it needs another hour, whatever the thermometer says.
- Rest wrapped for an hour, or hold it at 60°C for up to 4 hours if you are timing it around guests.
- Pull by hand, not with forks. Gloves on, tear it into strands and let the bark break into the pale meat. Do not use a mixer or shred it fine: pulled pork should have pieces, not fluff.
- Dress lightly. Pour over a third of the vinegar sauce, toss, taste, and add more only if it needs it. Carolina pork is seasoned and moistened by the sauce, not smothered by it. Serve the rest at the table.
Notes
- Christoph does not eat much pork. This is here because it is the Carolina classic and the method is worth having. Beef chuck works in exactly the same way, a 3 kg piece cooked to the same probe tenderness, and it pulls beautifully. Vinegar sauce suits it just as well.
- Bone in, always. The blade bone is a better doneness indicator than anything you can buy, and it costs nothing.
- Vinegar, not molasses. Eastern Carolina sauce is thin, sharp and peppery, and its job is to cut fat. A thick sweet sauce turns pulled pork into something else, and that something else is fine but it is Kansas City and not Carolina.
- Coleslaw on the sandwich, not beside it, if you want to do it properly.
- Freezing. It freezes extremely well, portioned with a little sauce and reheated gently. This is the best reason to cook a whole shoulder for a household of two.
Ingredient substitutions
- Pork shoulder is sold as Boston butt in North America and as Schweinenacken or Schulter in Germany. Ask for it with the bone and the fat cap, which most German butchers will do on request.
- No smoker. A 130°C oven for the same time gets you tender pork with no smoke flavour. A tablespoon of smoked paprika in the rub is an honest approximation rather than a substitute.