Texas-Style Smoked Pork Shoulder
Learn how to make the ultimate tender pulled pork on your smoker. We break down the simple steps, temperatures, and timing to get a rich, melt-in-your-mouth roast.
Ingredients
We love bone-in pork shoulder because the bone helps the meat cook evenly from the inside out.
Provides a good base of seasoning without making the meat too salty.
Coarsely ground pepper is the secret to getting that beautiful, dark crust on the outside.
Melts onto the pork to balance the salt and pepper with a touch of sweetness.
Keeps the surface of the meat from drying out and helps catch that wood smoke.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Trim and prep the pork
Trim away any loose fat flaps from the pork shoulder, leaving the thick layer of fat on top intact. Mix your salt, pepper, and brown sugar together, then coat the pork generously on all sides. Place it on a wire rack and let it sit uncovered in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours.
Letting the seasoned pork sit uncovered in the fridge overnight dries out the surface. This helps the seasoning stick and form that dark, crispy crust smokers are famous for.
Fire up your smoker
Preheat your smoker to between 225°F and 250°F (107°C–121°C). Load it with hickory, apple, or pecan wood, aiming for a clean, thin, barely-visible blue smoke.
Avoid thick, puffy white smoke, which can make your meat taste bitter and leave black soot. You want a soft, thin blue smoke for a sweet, woody flavor.
Place the pork in the smoker
Put the pork shoulder in the smoker with the fat side facing up. Smoke it for 5 to 6 hours, spraying it with apple juice once every hour after the first 3 hours to keep it moist.
Positioning the fat cap on top lets it melt down and baste the meat as it cooks. Spritzing it with apple juice keeps the surface wet, which helps catch more smoke.
Wrap the pork in foil
Once the meat reaches around 160°F (71°C) and the dark crust looks firm and set, wrap the shoulder tightly in two layers of heavy-duty foil, splashing in 2 tablespoons of apple juice right before you seal it.
Wrapping traps the steam, which softens the tough, chewy parts of the pork shoulder and helps you speed past the cooking 'stall'.
Cook until tender and let it rest
Place the wrapped pork back in your smoker at 250°F (121°C). Cook until the internal temperature reaches 203°F (95°C) and the bone wiggles easily when nudged. Wrap the entire foil package in a couple of old towels and let it rest in an empty cooler for 1 to 2 hours.
Pork shoulder needs to get all the way up to around 203°F for the tough fibers to melt completely. Slicing or pulling the meat too early will leave it tough and chewy.
Shred the meat
Gently pull the shoulder bone out—it should slide out clean. Shred the meat using two forks, and make sure to mix in all the flavorful juices left behind in the foil.
Avoid shredding the pork while it is steaming hot, or all the moisture will escape as steam, leaving your meat dry.
Nutritional Profile
Macros listed below scale dynamically based on the serving size selected in the recipe card.
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Try the Meat Temperature CalculatorTechnique Notes
- Don't skip the rest: Letting the meat rest in a cooler gives the juices time to reabsorb into the pork fibers, keeping it tender and wet after shredding.
- Test the bone: The bone is the ultimate test. When you can wiggle it freely and slide it out with zero resistance, you know the pork is perfectly done.
- Use our Meat Temperature Calculator to keep track of the perfect target temperatures for smoked pork.