Pulled Pork Innovation

We have eaten down virtually all of the smoked meat in the freezer. With the coming of the warm weather, it is time to start the smoker up and begin barbecuing. I already had a piece of pork shoulder in the freezer so pulled pork was first on the agenda. I have kept refining my pulled pork technique over the years. 

I've learned that you won't get a large piece of meat cooked to the proper temperature unless it is truly at room temperature when it starts smoking. That means taking it out of the refrigerated brine the night before. 

I learned about the chemical reaction that causes the internal heat rise to stall and the ways to get around it. 

I've refined my brining technique so the flavor is evenly distributed through out the meat. 

This weekend, through necessity, I've discovered a way to get around the super long time necessary to get a true pulled pork. Actually I haven't gotten around it. I have learned how to turn it into two separate cooking events. 

This started because (as I've mentioned previously) Wife and I don't like to eat large meals in the evening. But to have a pulled pork ready for a 2 PM dinner would mean starting at 2 in the morning. That isn't going to happen. So I conjectured, what if I brought the meat up to about 85% of the way on the smoker (that takes about 8 hours) the day before it was desired. Then took it off. Refrigerated it overnight, and then cooked it the rest of the way in the oven the next day. The challenge would be to get the cooking process restarted so it emulated the long, low cooking in the smoker. If it heated up too fast it would get tough. If I heated up too slow we'd be eating on Monday.

My technique was as follows.

• I had the meat wrapped in aluminum foil while in the refrigerator over night. I kept it in the foil during this entire second cooking process (that helps with overcoming the 'stall' mentioned above).
• I took the meat out 5 hours before the cooking started, again to get the internal temperature up.
• My initial oven temperature was 400 degree. The meat's internal temperature was 65 degrees. 
• I kept the meat at this oven temp until the meat internal temperature got to 120 degrees. This took an hour.
• I reduced the oven temp to 300 degrees. It took the meat another 2 hours to get to an internal temperature of 185 degrees.
• I reduced the oven heat again to 250 degrees. Over the next hour, the meat gradually got to my target of 200 degrees internal temperature. 
• But just before it reached that internal temperature, I dropped the oven to 200 degrees. Now the heating temperature was matching the internal temperature. 
• I left the meat at that state for about 30 minutes while prepared the rest of the meal.

Now the moment of truth. Meat is placed on a cutting board. I take my two large forks to start (I hope and pray) the pulling process. I have been at this point many times only to find I had a very nice roast pork but not pulled pork. Like Zorro, eight quick pulls and the entire roast is in shreds. I am bemoaning not having someone taking a video of this. 😭😭😭😭

And the flavor? Magnificent (he says with traditional de-I modesty). 

I am thinking I might use this as the 'go to' method for producing pulled pork.