The nice weather remains so I still have my smoker ready to go. My son/roommate came home sick from work yesterday and it turned out to be covid. I await to see how I fare now... I'm waiting a couple days for symptoms before I rapid test, then I will anyway. Before I knew the bad news, I was at Costco and they had $5 off whole pork shoulder blade roasts, so I paid $15 for a six pounder. I was so happy to get a food deal on something, so I had to buy it!!!
Last night I tied twine around the roast, put it on a rack in a tin foil roasting pan. I massaged it with fresh cracked pepper and "Traeger's" pork and poultry rub. It went into the fridge uncovered overnight. The following morning, I took it out an hour ahead to come to room temperature.
It went on the grill at 8:30am. I filled water in the bottom to just below the rack. I put it on a 250°F smoker, plugged the temperature probe in and let her rip. I had competition blend and charcoal pellets in the hopper. I was shooting for 195°F and then I would wrap in butcher paper (my newest buy for the smoker) and let rest as long as possible, depending on the time.
My smoker plans always sound so great when writing them out but don't always go as planned. Baby back pork ribs are my best outcome so far, twice now. 😋 I topped up the water checking every three hours as needed. My goal was not to open the smoker often, and why I used water in place of spritzing this time. I also didn't want to wrap before the ending rest either.
Above is how it looked at 163°F where it stalled. At an hour left in my timeline to hit temp, I had to turn it up to 300°F and hope it finished.
I took it off and wrapped it at 195°F. I put this in a towel in cooler bag since I didn't feel like dragging out my other cooler. I realized maybe I should have bought waxed butcher paper as this leaked all the grease out. At least I had a towel around it though I used that to keep it warm, not for grease...
It would have to do and it did fine. This took me 12 hours total, PLUS another half hour for resting time. I couldn't even rest for the hour I wanted to. 🙁
Anyway, I pulled it with 2 heavy duty forks I had. Above was just starting, not finished. I mixed some BBQ sauce in separately, served it on toasted potato buns with a vinegar slaw. We ate at 9:30pm.
My goodness, the BARK, oh lawdy it was damn fine! My sick isolating son msg'd me saying it was amazing. At least I can thankfully say this long day of smoking was worth it. Absolutely incredible. YUM!!! And that vinegar slaw was dynamite with the fatty pork and sweetish BBQ sauce.
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