find a day when you can give this 12 hours!
The night before rub your butt (he he)
an easy and good choice is Famous Dave’s Rub in the spice section, but you can make your own too – just find one online with brown sugar, paprika, garlic, chili powder, etc. Magic dust is one option.
I like to cut of the fat off the oustide so the rub gets right on the meat. There is plenty of fat in the meat to keep it moist.
Rub all over. Wrap in Saran Wrap.
Let sit overnight in the fridge.
Wake up early and:
1. soak a whole bag of hickory chips
2. get the fire started.
This is important, use charcoal that has not been treated with chemicals. I recommend Stubb’s that you can find a Lowes (around here) or Natural Lump Charcoal at Home Depot/Ace/Lowes
Make a large fire in your smoker box.
If you have a thermometer that you can measure the inside of the grill that is ideal (and just about necessary – I would not do it if I can’t measure the internal temp of the grill).
You want the grill to run about 250 degrees.
Slightly higher or lower is okay, but anything less than 225 is useless.
If your temp gets too hot, close the vent on the side of the box to cut oxygen. the temp will go down it will lessen the number of times you have add charcoal.
But don’t add so much that your fire shoot over 300 degrees. This is something you have to get a feel for, but in a smoker box, I find it very hard to make the fire too big.
Throw the butt on as soon as your temp gets up to 250.
From this point on, do not open the grill – ever – for any reason – not even a peek!
You will open the smoker box.
The only thing you do is watch the temp – add charcoal OR open the vent (depending on where you are in terms of charcoal on the fire) to keep the temp right.
Once you are running out of charcoal add more (lots) and when the temp goes up close the vent again.
Basically repeat.
You will add the wet chips at the beginning and once again every hour. Add a very large handful.
Now, here is what I recommend – I unless you have a warm day and everything is really going well, I would pull the butt off the grill when you are about 4 hours away from your dinner time.
Put in the oven at 325 degrees and cook until the internal temp is 190 degrees. You need to reach that internal temp for very tender pork. Maybe even 195 if you have the time. Everything should just pull apart very easily.
There you go.