Pulled Pork on the Grill

We had pulled pork for dinner last night and it was pretty good.  I made my own maple cole slaw and some hand-cut fries to go with it.  It was a really nice meal but it was an all day affair making it!

One thing is certain... Having an outdoor kitchen under a roof makes something like this far easier and more pleasant to accomplish.  

I did something a bit differently this time around.  Usually we take the quick and easy route by slow cooking the pork in the oven for about four hours.  That always turns out well but this time I went with a much slower cook on the grill.  I did it on the grill this time around for two reasons.  First, any meat tastes better on the grill.  And two, if I used the grill, then I could actually smoke the pork for even more flavor.  

I applied my homemade dry rub on Friday and let the pork sit in the fridge overnight.  Then I started the grill at around 9:45am with a combination of Cherry wood chips and Apple wood chips (all pre-soaked overnight) in the smoker box.  I had the meat on the grill by 10am at 225°.  

Our backyard smelled delicious all day long and I'm sure the whole neighborhood smelled of pork being slow grilled and smoked too!

I checked the temperature of the grill every half hour and adjusted it accordingly.  This is something I wouldn't need to do if I cooked this in the oven but the extra effort was worth it.  I also checked the wood chips every half hour.  It turns out that the wood chips needed to be refilled every hour or so.  After about two hours, I decided to add another homemade smoker box for the wood chips because it was such a pain in the butt refilling my usual cast iron smoker box.  I'm going to change that cast iron smoker box to something larger and easier to use after my experiences yesterday.  My temporary adaptation using a disposable foil pan worked out just fine though.

The pork roast took about eight or nine hours and it actually could have used another hour.  Parts of the pork were a bit harder than it should have been to pull it apart with a fork.  It was still tender and edible but it should be able to be pulled apart a bit more easily.  In the future, I'll either go with slightly more heat or longer slow roasting at around ten hours. 

I started basting it every half hour at the six hour mark.  I basted it with a Kansas City barbeque sauce.  

We served the pork on toasted rolls and topped with my maple cole slaw.  As I mentioned, above, we also had hand-cut fries with it.  It was a lot of work throughout the entire day but it was delicious!