I’m going to caveat upfront — this post really doesn’t contain a recipe. Because smoking a pork butt (the butt of the shoulder) is a PROCESS. But if you have 8 – 10 hours to hang out some weekend afternoon, you WILL be rewarded with sweet porky goodness at the end, with plenty to share.

In our house, all good barbecue starts with a rub. There are many fine commercial rubs. Penzey’s makes several and Nick’s makes a good one. So we’ve always got some around, but we do find they tend a little saltier than we like. So most of the time, we make our own. I don’t have exact proportions, but the basic rub for our pork tends to contain, in roughly descending quantities:

• Brown sugar (light and/or dark, depending on what’s in the house)
• Smoked Spanish Paprika
• Salt
• Ground black pepper
• Garlic Powder
• Onion Powder
• Ground cumin
• Ground Chipotle or Cayenne

Taste it for balance. Sweet should be at the forefront, with a hint of salt and smoky. Should finish a little spicy from the hot peppers. You can always cut it with a little more brown sugar or paprika if the salt or heat is too dominant.

Don’t worry if you make more than you think you need — as long as you don’t cross-contaminate with the raw meat, it will keep for a while in an airtight container. If you accidentally cross-contaminate (you know, stick your porky hand IN the container), then either use it all or toss it out. Don’t even THINK about saving it, even in the fridge, for another time.

We like to apply the rub to our butt (stop giggling!!) the night before. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight. Just for reference, this was about 7 pounds. Here’s the befores (11pm) and after (9a):

The next morning, Keith configured our Big Green Egg for indirect grilling with a plate setter, aiming for 225F to 250F. We put the meat on around 9a. Don’t waste the juicy stuff in the bottom of the night pan — pour that over your butt!

So now you get to sit around and watch the ballgame. Maybe do a little shopping on Amazon. Mow the lawn. About once an hour, take a peek at your dome temperature, adjusting your upper and lower vents as needed to keep it between 225 and 250. Ours sat around 250 for most of the smoke. There is NO reason to open the lid of the smoker!!

Around 4pm, Keith transferred the meat to a disposable aluminum pan. He added about 1″ of apple juice to that pan, covered it all with foil, and returned it to the grill at the same 225F – 250F. This is called “wrapping” and ALL the competition barbecue people do it!

We are converts to wrapping for the last 1/2 or 1/3 of the cooktime. We do it with our brisket and we do it with our ribs. It keeps you from over-smoking your meat, it lets you get a little moisture or flavor on the meat with no risk of burning, and it cuts the cooktime down because the meat is almost “braising” or “steaming” at the end. Downside — your bark might soften up some, but if you get good color/carmelization on there early on, you’ll be fine.

Around 6:30p, we checked the internal temperature. Right at 200. We like to take pork butt to 195F – 200F, so we probably coulda pulled it at 6p, but Keith was still mowing the lawn (pork butt is pretty forgiving, especially if wrapped). We pulled the meat, let it rest about 15 minutes, then started pulling:

We like to serve it on soft potato rolls with a selection of barbecue sauces. Right now we are obsessed with two from Harris Teeter — a mustard based and a vinegar based. Don’t forget one of my fabulous frozen margaritas!