Ingredients

Directions

1. Acquire Boston Butt (I usually get both shoulders in one package from Sam’s and smoke them both). Roughly 15 lbs. Keeps a long time in refrigerator and can also be frozen. So don’t hesitate to make too much. It’ll be gone much faster than you’d think. Make dry rub (make a bunch, it will keep) using this recipe.
2. Coat/roll the butt in dry rub and let sit overnight in the fridge. I sometimes add a little fresh garlic (can't use too much garlic!)
3. Fill smoker’s water pan w/ mixture of water, vinegar, 1 sliced lemon. Initially about 1 qt. of vinegar and the rest water. (Recommendation: buy your vinegar by the gallon.) Replenish water during smoking. After you smoke a couple butts, your smoker will be seasoned with this hickory/vinegar/lemon smell that will make your mouth water each time you walk by the smoker.
4. Make tinfoil pouches that can hold a handful or two of wet hickory chips. Punch a few holes in one side. I use a fork. For first two hours, this is the only smoke except for what the charcoal gives off. Use one pouch per hour or until the smoke dies down. It's not so much the quantity of smoke as it is the time.
5. Start with charcoal only and hickory chip pouches for first two hr and fat side down. After two hr, flip butt(s) so that fat side is up. Replace charcoal w/ hickory chunks as needed to maintain heat. Throw in hickory chunks about once an hour to maintain smoke and heat. Check the water and replenish as necessary. Spray apple juice on the meat each time you pop the lid on the smoker to check it.
6. Smoke for about 10 hours, switching to Mesquite chunks about half way through (timing not critical). Can get both hickory and mesquite chunks at Wal-mart during summer grilling season. Stock up to get through the winter though.
7. Wrap meat tightly along with a little apple juice with tin foil, and cook in 275-300°F oven for 1-2 hours, until the meat temp reaches ~195 °F. The purpose is to get the meat up to temperature so that it falls off the bone and pulls easily It will make your house smell really good! Although if you do this a lot, your wife will probably want you to install an oven in your garage to keep from smelling up the house.
8. Let cool a little bit. I have let it cool anywhere from 15 min to 3 hr and the result is the same. Trim fat off. Usually can scrape it off with fork or knife. You will lose some of the rub in this process. You don't want to cut off all the "burnt" edges --just the fatty part on top. It's not really burned and has a lot of flavor. Then pull the rest of the meat apart as you like. I use two forks and sometimes a knife. Fingers work pretty good too as long as it's not too hot.
9. Pour vinegar sauce (see recipe) over the pulled meat. Use entire recipe for 15 lbs of meat (both shoulders). Enough to wet the meat. This gives a vinegar-based Carolina BBQ taste.
10. You can eat it right away, but we normally do this at least one day ahead. It gets better over the next several days as the flavor migrates through the meat. The best way to reheat for serving is to take a bunch and wrap tightly in foil. Put in a 225°F oven for about an hour. Will make your house smell good again! Let it cool slightly before opening so that it doesn’t dry out quickly. Should be very juicy if you got it sealed off good. A lot of the fat will have cooked out and you have some relatively lean pulled pork. The sauce you put on previously will steam the meat, spreading the flavor. Of course, you can microwave it if people can't wait. But it ain't as good except after a couple of days you can't tell much of a difference because the flavor has spread well throughout the batch. I have found that John Boy and Billy's Grilling Sauce is a good complement to the vinegar-based sauce we put on the meat.

Source: Roger C. Dugan