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Start first thing in the morning by brining the shoulder. Put the pork into a large bowl, add a quarter cup each of kosher salt and brown sugar. Cover with water and stir to dissolve the sugar and salt. Cover with plastic or foil and stick it in the fridge for about four hours.
So, if you started first thing in the morning, around lunch time come back to this. Drain the brine and dry the shoulder well. Create a rub out of the following:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon chile powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon dry mustard
Mix this well and rub it on the shoulder. It's rub, after all, so really rub it in. Once you're done, cover the shoulder and put it back in the fridge.
Go get your smoking chips or chunks and start soaking them.
Sometime late in the afternoon, at least three hours before you'll want to eat, start the grill. You'll need lots of charcoal for this, but not all at once. In fact, if you use a chimney to start the charcoal, fill only about half a chimney. Once it's lighted, set the grill up for indirect heat and put the shoulder on the cool side of the grill.
Cover and go turn on the game. Every couple of innings, you can come back and check on the fire and the shoulder.
This is after about half an hour. See how small the fire is? That's really all you need. I added a few briquettes to this but the idea is to cook this slowly over low heat. Cover and go away again; let the smoke and heat work. Come back every half hour to check. Save a few of your soaked wood chunks to add once in a while--the goal is to always have smoke and heat.
You've got plenty of time, but when you're ready, get the rest of your meal together. We're having collards, corn, and grits. It's nearly the end of the fresh corn season, but I got some at one of our local farm stands. I think this is from New Jersey. Shuck the corn and grill it right over the hot portion of the grill. Just char the kernels a bit; you don't need to fully cook it. I've talked about this dish before, but this time we're doing it with the grilled corn.
I bought some double smoked bacon at the butcher on Massachusetts Ave. Dice the bacon into good sized pieces. Toss them into a pan over medium heat. Next dice up a small onion or about half of a big onion. Once the bacon has started to render its fat, toss in the onion. Stir every little while until the bacon is getting crisp and the onions are translucent and quite soft. Strip the grilled corn kernels from the cob, and add them to the pan. At this point, just turn off the heat and cover the pan. Let the flavors blend.
Given that you've used a rub, the shoulder should be pretty flavorful on its own. But if you want to add some bar-b-que sauce you might try this one:
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup yellow mustard
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons pepper (red or black)
Add all of this to a bowl and whisk together. This is a typical South Carolina mustard sauce.
Once the pork is done, you can separate the meat and stir it in the sauce. How do you know when it's done? Well, the short answer is when it reaches 165 degrees. The longer and better answer is that it's done when it's done. You can cook this over low heat for about three or four hours without overdoing it. The longer it's in the smoke, the more flavor you'll get. The longer and slower the cooking, the more the connective tissue dissolves and the more the meat falls apart. That's the goal: meat that you can pull apart with your fingers. I personally prefer chopped pork but the classic is pulled pork and that's what we're working toward with this.
So let the pork sit for about 15 minutes and start pulling it apart. You'll have lots of charred fat on the outside, just peel this away and discard. Separate the shoulder into sections and then shred the sections into strips like these above. Mix with your sauce: let the meat absorb the sauce--make sure the sauce is warm--and serve. The standard is to make these into pulled pork sandwiches but it's just fine on a plate rather than on a bun.
