Smoked Pulled Pork

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If you know me or my family personally, then you know that my parents own a BBQ restaurant & that my dad is an avid connoisseur of BBQ. He is seriously the pickiest guy ever when it comes to food, especially BBQ. Growing up, if he ever came across a BBQ place while we were traveling, he just had to stop and try it. He was always disappointed in it, as we told him he would be, but that never stopped him. Because of that, I’ve had my fair share of amazing… and not so amazing BBQ in my day. And this smoked pulled pork is some of the best I’ve had and it’s SUPER simple.

Smokers can be intimidating at first, but this is a perfect recipe to dip your toes into using it! We have a Traeger with “WiFire” that we love! It was a bit of a splurge a couple years ago, but we use it all the time & love it! Something about smoking meat that’s a bit different than other methods of cooking, is that you aren’t usually cooking things according to a timer. Instead, you are watching the internal temperature of the meat & going off of that. Most, if not all, smokers come with a probe that you stick in the meat & it will tell you on a screen or reader what the temperature is. If your’s doesn’t, that’s okay. Just have a thermometer on hand to check the meat occasionally, so you know when to pull it out.

First of all, go preheat your smoker to 250 degrees F and make sure the pellet hopper is full!

I usually make a smaller 2 lb roast for our small family & we have plenty for leftovers. But this can totally be adapted for a larger roast, just give yourself more time to cook because it will take longer. I like to err on the side of starting it early & knowing that I can hot hold it in the smoker or oven until serving and that is much easier than pushing it to get done.

Coat pork roast liberally with pork seasoning. One day I’ll get this written into it’s own blog post, but until then, this is it. You most likely already have all these ingredients in your spice cabinet.

Pork Seasoning Recipe:

4 tsp Garlic Powder

4 tsp Onion Powder

4 tsp Salt

3 tsp Black Pepper

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper

4 tsp Paprika

2 tsp Cumin

5 Tbls Brown Sugar

Mix all together & store in an airtight container! I put mine in empty spice shakers & keep it in my spice cabinet!

Coat the entire roast with the rub, being sure to get all sides well.

Put roast directly on grate in your preheated 250 degree F smoker. I like to put the side with the most fat facing up, so as that fat melts & renders, it soaks through the rest of the roast. Insert the probe into the very center of the roast. Close the lid & smoke until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F. A 2 lb roast takes about 2 hours. A larger roast will take longer.

When it gets to 160 degrees, place the roast into a foil pan, leaving the probe in the roast. Add about 1/2c apple juice to the pan & then cover it tightly with foil to keep the moisture in. Keeping the smoker at 250 degrees, continue to smoke the pork until it reaches an internal temperature of 205 degrees F. This takes about another 2 hours for a 2 lb roast & will take longer for a larger one.

Once it reaches 205 degrees, if you are not quite ready to serve, you can totally hot hold it until you are. To do this, just turn your smoker down to 170 degrees or move the pan to your oven at 170 degrees. This will keep it hot until you are ready for it. This is why I prefer to start mine early, because I know I can always hold it until I need it, and you can’t always push it to cook faster & get the same fall-apart results.

When you are ready to serve, remove the pan from the oven & shred it with tongs. The meat should fall apart & shred easily. Let the meat sit and absorb the juices & drippings for a few minutes. Then taste it and add additional pork seasoning if you feel like it needs it.

We serve it on slider or hamburger bunds with sauce on the side, giving everyone the option to put however much sauce they prefer, or what sauce they prefer, on it! But feel free to add the sauce into the meat. I would drain out any excess drippings before adding the sauce.