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Carolina Pulled Pork, Bill Blakely style Brine (per Boston Butt) 8 oz or 3/4 cup molasses 12 oz pickling salt 2 quarts bottled water (if using a   cooler as the brining chamber,   reduce this to 1.5 quarts and use   4-5 lbs of ice to keep the Butts   cold) Rub (per Boston Butt) 2 Tbs mild paprika 1 Tbs hot paprika ("Pride of   Szeged" is the most commonly found   brand of "HOT" paprika in US   grocery stores. I know that Publix   stores carry this brand). 3 tsp firmly packed lt. brown sugar 1 tsp celery seeds 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp dry mustard 1 tsp black peppercorns 1 tsp dehydrated onion flakes 1/2 tsp kosher salt Vinegar Sauce 2 cups cider vinegar 1 1/3 cups water 1/2 cup + 2 tbs. ketchup 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar,   or more to taste 5 tsp salt, or more to taste 4 tsp hot red pepper flakes 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp freshly ground white pepper North Carolina Style Coleslaw 1 sm. or 1/2 lg. head green cabbage 1 cup Vinegar sauce, or to taste Salt (optional)

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Directions 1 Here are the steps I took in preparing the Pulled Pork    I served at Eggtoberfest '04 2 Day 1 3 Brine your butt & Prep the Smoker (cleaning & loading    the smoker can be done any time before placing the butts on the    smoker) 4 Rinse off the Butts and put them in the brine. Let    them sit in the brine for 24 hours. 5 Clean out the entire smoker. Take any partially burned    pieces of wood and set them aside. Remove the fire ring and firebox    to make sure ALL of the ashes are out of the egg. Reassemble the egg    (don't forget to make sure the hole in the bottom of the firebox ring    lines up with the draft door on the egg) Open the bags of charcoal    and separate the pieces of charcoal into the 3 large bins - Large,    Medium, & Small (include the charcoal dust in the small bin). Stack    the largest & longest pieces in the bottom of the egg so that there    are lots of small gaps for oxygen to get in from the bottom. Keep    building up using smaller and smaller pieces (including the pieces of    partially used lump you pulled out of the smoker from your last

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session) until you are within approximately 1" of the top of the fire    ring (your hickory chunks will need that room between the charcoal    and the plate setter). 6 If you are using the Maverick ET-73 Redi Check Smoker    thermometer to monitor the dome temperature, remove the clip from    your BGE dial thermometer, but leave that thermometer in the Egg (you    will use the dial thermometer prior to putting the butts on the egg). 7 Day 2 8 Rub your butt 9 Rub (per Boston Butt) 10 Grind the celery seeds, peppercorns, onion flakes,    and kosher salt into a powder with the spice/coffee grinder. Mix    those ingredients with the rest of the rub ingredients. 11 Take the butts out of the brine and dry them off with    paper towels. Pat the rub onto all six sides of the butt and any    openings between the muscles. Shake off any excess (the excess rub    can be used on the next butt.) Dispose of any left over rub. Wrap    each butt in saran wrap and place in either a refrigerator or in a    cooler with ice in sealed bags or dry ice (if using the same cooler

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that was used to brine the butts, drain the brine solution and dry it    out before putting in the rubbed butts). 12 Pour 2-3 bottles of the beer into a large bowl or    pail. Place about 10-15 chunks of hickory in the bowl (make sure they    all fit below the top of the bowl/pail.) Fill in the gaps with    several handfuls of hickory chips. Fill up the rest of the bowl with    water and hold the wood under with a heavy plate or pan top. (the    chunks and chips should soak for at least an hour or two before you    put them on the fire. However, soaking them on the day before you    intend to use them means that is one less thing to forget about!) 13 Day 3 14 Smoke em' if you got em! 15 If you haven't already prepared your smoker or soaked    your chips, do so now! 16 Start your BGE with either starter squares or, if you    can find it, Greenheat gel. I start fires in four locations in the    charcoal and usually get 2 or 3 to keep going. Open the draft door    and take the cap off the top. (Cheating tip - if you don't have a    BBGGuru forced air unit, get one of those cheap hand-held fans that

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use a AA battery and position it in front of the draft door. It will    force air up through your charcoal stack and will get your fire going    a lot faster.) 17 Once you see your dome temperature starts to move    above 250, open the lid and make sure your fires have established    themselves throughout the top of the stack. If they have, start    placing the hickory chunks on top of the charcoal stack. Once they    are placed, scatter the hickory chips over the top of the stack. 18 Place your plate setter, "legs" side up, on top of    the fire ring (you might have to "tamp" down some of the hickory    chunks a few times to get the plate setter to sit flat). Place the    drip pan on top of the plate setter. Place your smoker grid on top of    the legs of the plate setter. 19 Take the butts out of the cooler or refrigerator at    this time. You want them to be as cold as possible before you put    them on the egg. As they warm up, they will absorb the smoke flavor    faster than if they start off at room temperature. Arrange 3 (2 for    the medium egg) butts on the grid with the layer of fat on top (you    want the fat to trickle over and through the butt as it melts!) (If

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you have a large egg, you can get 4 butts on the grid by placing them    on their sides). Insert the meat probe from your remote thermometer    into a meaty part of one the butts (you might have to fish around    inside the butt to get around the bone). 20 If you are using the Maverick ET-73 Redi Check Smoker    thermometer, replace the BGE dial thermometer with the Smoker probe.    With either thermometer, make sure that the end of the probe is not    sticking into one of the butts when you close the lid. If it does,    rearrange the butts so there is a gap between the butts in the front    middle portion of the grid. 21 Start adjusting the temperature of the egg. Move the    draft door so that you have a gap of about 1/4th of an inch. Close    down the daisy wheel so that no smoke is coming out of the draft door    or between the lid and the base of the egg. You want to bring the    dome temperature to a range of 210 to 225. As you reach that range,    move the draft door so that you have a gap of 1/8th inch opening and    start closing down the daisy wheel. Once you have the temperature    within that range, you will generally only use the daisy wheel to    adjust your temperature. If the temperature starts to fall, open the

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daisy wheel to allow the smoker to pull more air through the egg. If    the temperature starts to rise, close down the daisy wheel to slow    down how much air can move through the egg (which in turn dampens the    ability of the fire to pull more air from the draft door.). 22 The real work is done! Now the worrying begins! (just    kidding!). If you are using the Maverick thermometer, make sure you    set it to alert you if the smoker temperature goes below 200 degrees.    Keep an eye on the smoker temperature for the next few hours to make    sure the temperature is staying within your range and adjust the    daisy wheel as necessary (try not to adjust both the daisy wheel and    the draft door at the same time - it is extremely difficult to    smoothly adjust temperatures if you adjust both simultaneously). Also    keep an eye on the meat temperature. If the temperature starts to    jump, move the probe to another location or another butt (the probe    was probably in a pocket of fat which has melted and gotten hotter    than the meat). 23 One word of caution - due to the large amount of    smoking wood used, your egg will look like a smokestack for the first    few hours. This is what I call "marinating with smoke" (I use this

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same concept with spathcocked chickens - but that is another story).    The cold meat is more receptive to absorbing the smoke flavor, so the    longer it takes to reach 140F, the more smoke flavor you butts will    contain (as I understand it, when the meat reaches 140F, the pores    which have been absorbing smoke start to close up). If you need to    open your egg watch out for huge plumes of smoke for the first 30    seconds. Try not to keep the dome open more than a minute or minute    and a half at a time (the coals will suck in huge amounts of air    while the dome is open and will flame up). 24 If you are dealing with cold temperatures (50F or    below), you need to open the draft door a bit more to compensate for    the fire having to burn hotter in order to keep the dome temperatures    in the 220 range. If you are smoking in cold weather, keep a close    eye on the charcoal levels in the smoker. Because the fire burns    hotter, it might use the entire lump before the butts are finished.    If you think that might happen, lift up a section of the grid and    toss more pieces of lump down into the smoker. 25 Over the next 14-16 hours the temperature of the    butts will gradually rise to the 180F range. Once they reach that

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range, the temperature will plateau for 3-4 hours as the collagen    around the bone melts. When it starts moving again, move the meat    thermometer to a few spots on different butts to make sure that all    of the butts have completely broken down the collagen. At that point,    open the draft door 1/2 of an inch and let the dome temperature rise    to around 335F. When the meat thermometer gets to 205F, move it to    different positions on different butts. When you find a position that    has a lower temperature than the previous site, leave the probe and    close the dome. Keep doing this until you move it four or five times    and don't find a site with a temperature lower than 203. 26 Pull the butts off of the smoker, close down the    draft door, and replace the daisy wheel cap with the ceramic cap (you    want to shut down the egg as quickly as possible so that you can    re-use any partially burned lump). You can cover the butts in tinfoil    for 30 minutes to let them rest. I have not found any real benefit to    doing that (other than keeping the butts hot while I get ready to    pull them apart). 27 In order to make "pulled pork", you must pull apart    the strands of meat (as opposed to slicing or chopping it). You can

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use your fingers or a pair of folks (place one in each hand and turn    them inside out). The first step is to pull off a section of the    butt. Pull the outer crust off and set it aside. This is called the    "Bark" (as in the bark of a tree). It is very chewy and very    intensely flavored (it contains the rub that did not soak into the    meat and was directly exposed to the smoke). Next, scrape off and    discard any remaining fat from the outside of the muscles. Finally,    pull apart the meat using your fingers or the forks. Once you have a    "mound" of meat, add vinegar sauce to taste. 28 Vinegar Sauce 29 Combine all ingredients in a nonreactive medium size    bowl and whisk until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Taste for    seasoning, adding sugar or salt as necessary; the sauce should be    piquant but not quite sour. 30 North Carolina Style Coleslaw 31 Shred cabbage and add the vinegar sauce. Let stand    for 10 minutes and reseason if necessary.