Here we have this awesome, amazing and simple of all pulled pork recipe for you.
If you are a beginner and you want to try out this recipe, then we are sure that this recipe will help you out.
This one is a real deal recipe for you. We are quite confident that you will love preparing it and will be eager to serve it to your guests.
Furthermore, if you are tired of making these crockpot kinds of pulled pork recipes, then try this one right now.
No doubt, this is by far the best one smoked pork recipe that we have pen down for you. You will feel a lot of pleasure while eating and having it.
This is quick as well as easy pulled pork recipe. Once you will try, you will yourself say that there is no other substitute for this amazing smoked pulled pork.
There is a quick trick to learn it. You only have to slowly and gradually cook it right over low heat.
Carry out this process in a smoker or grill. Make this dish in a tender form and in a way that it melts into your mouth.
Table of Contents
Preparation and Cooking Time of Simple Pulled Pork!
This is an American cuisine dish and you can have it during your lunch or dinner time.
You can have it an entrée or have it in your sandwich. To trim it, it will take around and about 25 minutes.
And for salt penetration, the time that it will take is going to be 12 to 24 hours. In addition, its cooking preparation time is 8 to 12 hours.
It will be great if you have this pulled pork with a glass of beer or you have it with some refreshing bourbon cocktail.
As a side dish, it will be best if you make potato salad or baked beans with this amazing dish. You can even grill some corns.
Ingredients to make Simple Pulled Pork
You need to have 1 pork butt, it should be around and about 5 pounds. Then you will need 1/3 cup of dust and 1.2 teaspoons of salt per meat pound.
You will be in need of 10 Kaiser Rolls or you can have hamburger buns.
Lastly, you need to buy and get 1 cup of barbecue sauce. It can be any of your favourite sauce.
Regarding pork buying, make sure that you get it from some reputable and reliable grocery store. Your pork should be fine.
Method to Make Simple Pulled Pork
Trimming your Pork Meat:
First of all, we will talk about the preparation method. You need to trim your pork right from the exterior side of it.
This trimming job needs to be done on the fat side. Avoid trimming all of the fat from your pork. Some of the people, they avoid trimming their pork.
They are of this belief that fat will be able to get melt during the phase of smoking. But this is a wrong cooking step! You should trim your pork fat.
In this way, the salt will get penetrated in it in an excellent manner. This step is essential to season your pork meat in an ideal way.
Moreover, with this trimming job, your pulled pork dish will get more crunchy and full of flavours.
Seasoning your Pork Butt:
The next step is to season your pork butt. This is a crucial step that you have to carry out.
You can do this job of seasoning with the help of salt. And then you can refrigerate your pork for about a time frame of 12 to 24 hours.
This is what we call dry brining technique.
With the incorporation of dry brining approach, the salt will get a golden chance to penetrate into your pork butt deeper.
Marinate your Pork:
Once you are done with seasoning, then you have to marinate your pork butt. What you can do is to marinate it with water or with bottled mustard.
This marinating step is going to dissolve your pork butt rub in a seamless manner. You are even allowed to marinate it with the help of yellow mustard.
Moreover, if you want to bring mustard flavour right into your pulled pork dish, then you can make use of mustard powder.
You can go to other flavours as well.
Start to Fire Up:
Now, you need to get a smoker for yourself.
Make sure that you do well prepare your smoker. It should be taken up to the temperature range of 225-degrees F. If you want to set up a grill, you can do that as well.
Furthermore, make sure to fully and perfectly adjust the vents.
You can only cook perfectly pulled pork if you bring and adjust the temperature to around and about and approximately 225°F and this is the restriction for you.
You need to keep on adding and infusing 4 ounces of wood chips and pellets or it can be any kind of wood chunks to the fire.
Cooking Time Started:
So, your fire up phase is done now. You can enter your pulled pork into the cooking preparation stage.
Once you see that your smoker is ready, it means that you can throw your pork butt into it.
To verify and check the temperature of your pork butt, you can insert any of the digital probes in it, This way, you do not have to open smoker again and again.
In addition, you have to position this digital probe right in the centre section of your pork.
And it should not be within 1/2″ of pork bone zone. By doing so, it will be easy for you to monitor and keep an eye on the internal temperature range of the pork butt.
Placing Pork Meat in the Smoker:
The next step to make this simple pulled pork, it is to place it in the smoker. It is by using this injecting this smoking technique that you will allow your pork to be filled with lots of flavours.
In addition, your pork butt should be allowed and permitted to smoke in an uninterrupted manner.
There should be no disturbance and fluctuation in this cooking phase. You have to keep on checking your smoker at regular and consistent intervals.
Moreover, your smoker fuel has to be sufficient enough. You should not run out of the smoke. The temperature range has to be in between 225 to 250°F.
Moreover, if the smoker temperature goes up to the range of 300°F on temporary notes, then there is no need to worry about. All in all, you have to ensure that temperature range remains to stay under 250 degrees F.
You can keep on adding more and more wood chips so that the temperature remains stable and balanced enough. Do not overpower your fire. If your wood fire zone is overpowered, then the pleasant taste will not come into your pulled pork dish.
Just keep on cooking your pork butt. As soon as your dish hit and reach to the internal temperature range of 170°F, then you will see that the collagens and connective tissues of your pork butt are going to start to melt.
Besides, they are going to be turned and transformed into gelatin. It is by this temperature range that your pulled pork will become much more soft and tender. It will become juicy too.
Giving Finishing Touch to your Simple Pulled Pork:
When you see that the internal temperature range manages to hit up to the level of 203°F, then it is the right time to check whether your pulled pork is ready or not.
This temperature is attained and acquired after a time frame of 8 to 12 hours. Once this time is passed, then it is expected that your pork butt will turn out to be dark brown.
It has to look crunchy from the exterior side. If your pork butt looks like that of a meteorite and if it looks black in colour, then do not get worried at all.
This happens to most of the pork butt dishes. If it gets black in colour, then it does not mean you have burnt your dish.
On a cooked dish, there will be glistening bits and traces of melted fat.
How to Check if Your Simple Pulled Pork is Cooked Properly or Not?
To check and verify whether you have successfully cooked the pulled pork, you can do that by turning the pork bone.
If the bone turns conveniently and easily, it means your pork butt is cooked with perfection. For turning a bone, you need to wear and put on a glove or you can do this job by using a paper towel.
If you will not keep in mind these precautionary measures, then you may hurt and damage your fingers. If there is no bone in your pork, then you check it by inserting a fork.
If the fork is freely moving in your pork butt and you are able to rotate it in 90 degrees, then it means your pork butt is cooked with all perfection.
Most importantly, there are different variety and breed of pork. That is why their cooking and another preparation phase may differ a lot.
What to do if Your Pork Butt is Not Ready?
In this case, you should not get worried at all. If you think and notice that your pulled pork butt is not ready to be served and you think that it is still uncooked, then you need to cook and smoke it more.
You need to get a tender pork butt and that should be your ultimate goal.
What you can do is to wrap and cover your uncooked pork butt right in an aluminium foil and you are free to cook and smoke them for another one-hour time frame up to the temperature range of 225 degrees F.
Do Taste Your Pulled Pork Before you Serve It!
Before you serve this pulled pork to your guests, make sure that you do taste it beforehand.
You need to check whether it tastes up to perfection level or not. Or you can get an idea by looking at its shape and overall texture.
Like, well-cooked pulled pork, it usually and mainly have a thick kind of flavorful crust on it. There is a smoke ring present in it.
And this pulled pork butt comes in the form of bright pink colour.
If all these signs and indications are there, it means you have cooked this dish properly.
Pulling your Pork:
When your pork butt is ready, then you need to pull it before you serve it to your guests. It can be 30 minutes before the serving time.
What you can do is to take a large-size pan. It is on this pan that you will be carrying out your pork pulling job.
This job will not become messy and all drippings will fall on the pan surface. You can pull your pork butt all with the help of claws.
Your hands should be gloved. If there are any big chunks and portions of fat present on your fat, then do discard them right away.
In between this pulling job, make sure that you do separate all of the flavorful kind of crusty bits of pork.
That you can distribute and spread later on your dish! If you have got any flavorful drippings at your hand, then you can sprinkle them on your pulled pork dish as well.
Serve it to Your Guests:
This is all about the simple pulled pork recipe. Are you ready to try it? As we have shared extensive and all in-detail recipe plan for you.
Once you pull your pork butt and serve it on a dish, it means your dish is ready to be eaten. You can have this pulled pork as it is or you can have its buns.
Fuse it with BBQ sauce and enjoy every single bite of it.
Moreover, you can have it with baked potatoes and with so much more other exciting stuff.
Tips Regarding smoke Pulled Pork!
One should know the basics of smoking pulled pork butt. Here you can check out all of the important tips.
If you wish to go on carrying out quality smoke routine, then these tips can help you.
You need to make sure that you well control and stabilize the temperature of your smoker.
This is the most important aspect that you have to keep in mind. In the preparation phase, keep your smoker to be set at 235 degrees.
You need to slowly cook this pork butt. Only then, you will get the right flavour in your dish. You may have seen in lots of cooking competitions that cook experts slowly cook their pork.
They do not this job in a hurry. Upon cooking it at low temperature, you will be able to retain the moisture while pulling your pork.
Furthermore, slow cooking will allow all fat to get to break down seamlessly and properly. With this approach of slow cooking, you do not have to use injections for the sake of breaking down fat.
If you want to skip the part of trimming, you can do that. Like if you are in a cooking competition and you are running short off time, then skip this phase of trimming.
Cooks generally and mainly go for trimming to give a neat and perfect appearance to their pork. But if you think there is no need for trimming, then you are free to skip this step.
It is with your favourite BBQ rub and also binder that you can season your pork meat. It will be super amazing and best if you plan to apply a very light coating of yellow mustard on your meat.
This yellow mustard will act in the form of a binder and no unpleasant flavour will come in your dish.
You can use vinegar to make your pork meat tenderize kind of one! Lastly, you have to allow seasonings to get fully penetrated and immersed in your meat.
More Tips on Making Great and Tasty Simple Pulled Pork!
For smoking, the internal temperature monitoring should be done by you. It is after 3 to 4 hours that you have to closely monitor the temperature scale.
As soon as your pork butt gets to enter in the second phase of cooking, then you have to be more vigilant in this job of monitoring.
For checking this temperature, you can take assistance from the thermometer. This thermometer should not be touching your pork butt bone. Otherwise, you will get an inaccurate reading.
It is right after the 5-hour time frame that you can wrap your pork butt in an aluminium foil. By doing so, your meat will not be able to get too much smoke and it will keep your dish tasty enough as well.
Moreover, you only need to maintain the fire. It is not necessary that you have to keep on adding more and more coals. Just maintain the fire momentum and this is all.
When you take your pork butt from the smoker, then allow to settle and sit your meat for about 30 minutes duration.
Place it in a large platter or you can use a large pan for this job. Apart from maintaining the temperature, you have to control it as well. Once your place your pork butt in the smoker, then it should be cooked at 235 degrees temperature.
We can give you another handy tip that pork meat usually and generally cooks right at a rate of 1 hour on per pound basis. Now, you can do the rest of the maths and calculations.
Besides, you need to make use of a good quality bed of coals.
These coals will act in the form of heat source for you. You can even add wood to add up and infuse more exciting flavour. Avoid adding more woods, this way your pulled pork dish may turn out to be over smoked.
In the very first half and the initial phase of your cooking, you need to keep the smoker lid all close. Here in this phase, the smoking cooking technique will perform its magic. Upon closing the lid, more flavour will come in your meat.
Lastly, you need to achieve and get effective airflow mode for this cooking job. If you manage to get a thin blue kind of coloured smoke all coming out and rolling through the pit smoker, then it means your cooking job is going fine.
On the other hand, if thick smoke is coming out, then it means proper oxygen and smoke is not provided to your smoker.
For that, you need to immediately and instantly adjust the airflow mode and look into the ventilation mode.
Conclusion!
This is the end of this heavy discussion. Now, are you all gear up to make and try this simple pulled pork recipe?
This is a go-to anytime dish for you that you can have it on your table. You can eat it at any time of the day.
Plus, if there is a hungry crowd coming in your home and you want to serve them with appetizing entrée, then make simple pulled pork dish for them. It does not create a lot of fuss for you and the hungry crowd out there will simply love this dish.
Do try out this old school BBQ smoking technique and share your experience with us. This is a super authentic recipe and it is full of flavours.
This pulled pork will for sure come out to be extra tasty for you. You can also have it with smoked paprika and onion. Have it with smoked garlic.
And your favourite woods need to be hickory or apple. Do not overwhelm your smoke and give your best in this dish.
We will share more of the pulled pork recipes, keep tuned over here and stay connected.