BBQ Pulled Pork

This is a simple recipe that results in pulled pork as good or better than what you get at the restaurant. I use a cheap electric box smoker for this. I know there’s a huge market in crazy expensive “grill-ware”, but I’m prefer keeping things simple and cheap like the BBQ gods intended. Using an electric smoker takes out all the stress of maintaining temps and let’s me sleep through the night when I’m doing BBQ.

Ingredients

  • 1 Boston butt (bone in or out, doesn’t matter)
  • 1 cup beef bone broth
  • Rub (your choice, I like mine)
  • Hamburger Buns
  • Coleslaw
  • Sweet & Smokey BBQ Sauce (Sticky Fingers Memphis Style)
  • Spicy BBQ Sauce (Rendezvous Hot Sauce)
  • Hickory wood chips

Instructions

  1. About 7:30 or 8:00 pm the night before, remove the mid and top grates from your smoker and set it to 275 degrees and 16 hours.
  2. Set the butt on a grate and set that on a rimmed baking sheet.
  3. Mix the bone broth with around 1 to 2 tablespoons of your rub.
  4. Now grab your injector and work your way around the butt, injecting the mixture throughout. I usually adjust the angle of the syringe with each insertion to distribute the seasonings.
  5. Liberally coat the butt with the rub on all sides.
  6. Once the smoker has heated up a bit, slide the grate into the middle of the smoker.
  7. Add wood chips every 20-30 minutes for 4 hours.
  8. After 4 hours of good smoke, wrap the butt in aluminum foil and place it back in the smoker.
  9. Go to sleep!
  10. The next morning, insert an electric thermometer into the butt through the foil and run the cord out the door.
  11. Continue to smoke the butt until internal temperature reaches 205-210 degrees. I usually let it go for another hour or so just to make sure everything is nicely rendered, making sure the temps don’t start to rise. I like to pull it out around 11:00 to 11:30 for lunch.
  12. Pull the grate with the butt out of the smoker onto a rimmed baking sheet and move it to the kitchen.
  13. Get a large bowl and set it beside your butt. Open the foil at the top, spread the foil a bit, and let the juices drain into the rimmed baking sheet. You may want to poke a few holes in the bottom of the foil.
  14. Pull out the bone if you have one, should be a easy clean pull. The butt should be super tender and fall apart easily. Use tongs or forks to transfer the pork into your bowl, discarding any unwanted fat that may remain as you go.
  15. Use your hands to pull apart the pork into roughly bite size pieces. It should pretty much fall apart.
  16. Pour half of the drippings from the rimmed baking sheet back over the pulled pork and mix combine.
  17. Grab a bun, some slaw, and 2 sauces. Put a healthy dab of the sweet and smokey sauce on the bottom bun. Pile your pulled pork on top of that. Put a healthy dab of the spicy sauce on top of the pork. Cover that with slaw. Add another dab of the spicy sauce to the top bun and cap off your sandwich.
  18. Serve with your favorite BBQ sides.