Sous Vide Smoked Pork Shoulder

I’ve spent most of my evening fixing interface issues on my blog and have finally added a search box on my top menu. I didn’t wanna do it this way because there’s already a search box right next door if you look at my site on a desktop but there’s no other way to do it unless I dive in a start coding css, html, java (I rather somebody shoot me in the face first, especially on this laptop.. the keyboard is a fine fine example of horrible engineering) … but I rather spend my time doing stuff like making this AMAZING sous vide recipe. Yes, Smoked pork shoulder sous vide!

There’s literally nothing to this thing. You will require a smoker tho… or you could improvise one using your grill. You can check out my smoked chuck recipe and scroll down a bit. There’s a section about rigging this up. Other than that, smoking a pork shoulder is very straight forward.

Ingredients:

  • Pork shoulder (any size you can find)
  • Salt and pepper.

Seasoning.

Season the pork anyway you like. I simply rubbed it with plenty of salt and pepper. I would have brined it but didn’t have time. Also, feel free to use other seasonings, spices, herbs, whatever you like. I like to keep things as simple as possible especially when trying something new.

Smoking.

 I just got myself a small electric smoker and this smoked pork shoulder is one of those things for us meat-eaters that well… a huge priority. The size of this pork shoulder was actually small… maybe 4-5 pounds so it reached 185F in a little less than 3 hours at 300F (that’s the setting I used on my smoker).  As a rule of thumb, it’s about an hour of smoking per pound of meat but I use a thermometer and very rarely follow thumb rules and stuff.

Sous vide to modify texture.

Pork shoulder is kind of a tough muscle so really needs a little longer to break down nicely and here’s where my Sous Vide thingy comes into play. The pork is cooked through but don’t let that stop you. After 12 hours at 70C, it was finally butter-soft helped by its delicious natural marbling. I could have left it in the smoker for longer (removing the chips… the chips! I almost forgot… I used hickory but would have rather used apple) but the texture and juiciness that you get with SV is hard to beat. Also, you can reverse this approach and sous vide first and smoke second. I haven’t tried it but mathematically speaking should be the same… or would it? 🙂 that’s an experiment for some other time.

What do I do with this pork?

After the SV portion of the cook, you’re ready to rock. No need to rest the meat. And not that I need to tell you this but smoked pork shoulder is awesome to eat cold by itself or in sandwiches (insert Cuban sandwich emoji here). Quickly crisped up on a hot skillet to top ramen bowls.  Wrapped in parchment paper to bribe prison guards, etc. Good night guys. I gotta go find a gun and shoot my computer.



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