If you’d like to do something a little different in your BBQ smoker but still want a traditional meal, try smoking pork butt using a barbeque dry rub. You’ll get a highly flavorful piece of smoked meat, cheaply and easily. All you need for this undertaking is a few basic ingredients for the rub, some charcoal and wood chips, a smoker, and a cut of pork butt around nine pounds in weight. Contrary to common perception, a pork butt is not the hind quarters of the pig. It’s actually the shoulder of the pig, where the leg “butts” up against the shoulder blade. The meat in this location is very flavorful and is ideal for a BBQ smoker.
Your first step is to prepare the barbeque dry rub ingredients. Even though this barbeque rub recipe isn’t difficult or detailed, the directions have to be followed perfect to get good results. Start with 2 teaspoons ground black pepper, 2 tablespoons kosher or coarse salt, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves, 2 teaspoons paprika, half a teaspoon ground cumin, and 1 teaspoon granulated garlic. Mix them together thoroughly in a bowl to form the barbeque dry rub. Then apply the mixture to the pork butt liberally. Place the pork in a covered container and leave it to sit in the refrigerator overnight. This will considerably heighten the flavor of the pork, so don’t leave out this step.
Once the pork has had a chance to absorb the flavor of the rub, get your smoker ready. If you haven’t done this before, it’s not a hard thing to accomplish, but it will take a bit of time. Make sure that your smoker features a thermometer. You need to get the heat up to approximately 225 degrees, at the least. I find that it’s perfect at about 240 degrees. Once your smoker has achieved the right temperature, put the pork butt in the smoker, making sure that the fatty side is facing up. This way the juices will infuse the entire cut of meat. Leave it to smoke until it’s very tender. You’ll want to allow about 70 minutes per pound of pork, or somewhere around eight to ten hours. You might have to turn it every couple of hours. You’ll know that it’s done when it is tender to the fork. When you check for tenderness, concentrate on the meaty region above or below the bone.
Pull it out of the smoker and let it rest for approximately 30 minutes. Then use two forks to pull the meat apart. Mix it with some barbeque sauce, and enjoy!