Sunday Afternoon

I kept myself pretty busy this week. Tearing down an old shed at my house. In effect, I haven’t done much cooking. However, I decided to take today off and smoke a pork shoulder. (Follow along on Instagram to see how it’s going!)

For those of you that have been following along. You saw the spices and rub that I am using for this cook. But I’ll go into some of what I used now. The base for any rub that I make is brown sugar and course kosher salt. I also generally throw in garlic and onion powder, paprika, cumin, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg.

For this cook, I also used chipotle chili powder, pink peppercorns, and Aleppo pepper. (shout out to @spiceology for the last two ingredients. ‘Cause I use it and, they ain’t even paying me for it. Yet! Lmao.)

Now by the time, I have the rub made. I’ve already got my fire going. My preferred method for building the fire is with lump charcoal, paper and hardwood chunks, or logs. I don’t soak the wood, because it leaves a mildewy flavor in the meat.

Now that the fire is going. I keep my smoker rolling around 200 degrees Fahrenheit with the shoulder as far away from the flame as possible.

At this point all that’s really left, is to kick back, relax, and tend to the fire for a few hours.