Pulled Pork Barbecue

Now we begin. I have 18lbs of BONE-IN pork shoulder that I plan on pulling tomorrow night. This will become Pulled Pork Barbecue; one of the south's greatest gifts to the barbeque world. I made an injection base of apple juice, kosher salt, garlic powder, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, water and a couple of secret ingredients. This mixture is heated and blended so that the sugars and salt are completely dissolved in the solution.

Here you can see one half of the pork shoulder ready to be injected. The injection base is in the glass and needle. You will need about 1 oz of injection base for each 1/2 pound of meat. This is not fixed in stone and you'll find that some meat will take more and sometimes a lot less.




Here's a shot of the meat being injected. As you inject the liquid into the meat, you need to move the needle around so that the injection base spreads throughout the meat. Keep a steady pressure on the needle as you move it from side to side and in and out. Otherwise, you'll be left with grey streaks of injection base in the finished meat. These large needles are sold in every Home Depot and Lowes, usually by the turkey fryers.

As you inject the meat, you will actually see it swell up as the injection base fills the pockets in the meat. This is a good thing. I remember watching a show on Food Network, where the cook actually had his needle attached to a hydraulic press, and as the injection base entered the meat you saw the meat stretch and double in size. Be careful when injecting and don't be surprised to find that the injection base leaks out of the meat in various spots.

After the meat was injected, I rubbed the meat with a modified version of Head Country and Emeril's Rib Rub. Then the meat was wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator until tomorrow morning. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of that, my digital camera is acting up. (Yes I charged it!) It took the three pictures posted here, then shut down. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pics of the fire building and cooking tomorrow. Talk to you then.