Step 1 - Prep your pork

I use rindless pork shoulders, and cover them with a dry rub - in the video I'm using one from Norfolk Smoke Pit which is an awesome small business. I prefer to use a spicy rub, and then add a sweet BBQ sauce at the end to balance it out. Use plenty of rub and make sure the pork's evenly covered all over.

If your pork is dry and needs a binder, use a sauce such as sriracha or American mustard - but mine came out pretty wet, so I went straight in with the rub.

Ideally, rub the pork the night before you cook, but as you can see in the video, you can do it right before it goes on the BBQ as long as you don't mind sacrificing some bark.

Step 2 - Choose your fuel

For me, cherry smoke works perfectly with pork so I'm using our British cherry charcoal to provide the heat with some cherry chunks for flavour. If you're in the market for fuel, check out what we offer...

Step 3 - Get your BBQ up to temperature

We want to smoke the pulled pork at around 150°c - this is low enough to render the fat, but hot enough so it doesn't take 10+ hours!

I cooked on our new Kamado Joe, so I loaded the fuel basket with charcoal and a few smoking chunks on top, lit a couple of natural firelighters, closed the lid and opened the vents. I then watched the temperature gauge to see when it got close to 150°c, and closed the vents.

If you're using a kettle BBQ to cook your pulled pork, I'd recommend using the snake method which you can see here:

Step 4 - Get the pork on the BBQ

Push a meat probe into the pork shoulder, place it on the cooking grate and close the lid of your BBQ

Step 5 - Manage the temperature

Keep an eye on the BBQ temperature - you want it to sit at around 150°c with nice clean smoke coming coming out of the lid. If the BBQ temperature drops, you can open the vents to improve airflow and bring the temperature up, or vice versa. We don't want to open the BBQ lid until the pork hits around 75°c internal temperature.

Step 6 - Wrap the pork

Once your probe tells you that the pork's hit 75°c, take it off the BBQ and wrap it using either foil or butchers paper. I ran out of both, so had to use non-stick baking paper which wasn't ideal - but did the job! You want it to be as airtight as possible so try not to leave any gaps where the pork is exposed.

Make sure you close the BBQ lid while you wrap to keep the temperature consistent - increased airflow with the lid open can really spike the temperature.

Step 7 - Keep cooking

Put the wrapped pork back on the BBQ and close the lid again. Continue to cook until your probe tells you that the internal temperature of the pork has hit 95°c.

Step 8 - Probe for doneness

Use an instant read thermometer to probe all over the pork. If it probes like butter all over, it's ready to come off the heat.

Step 9 - Cover and rest

Pull the wrapped pork off the BBQ and wrap in a towel. Leave it wrapped in the towel for around an hour, then remove the towel and leave to rest just in the foil/butchers paper for another 30 minutes.

If you want to hold the pork at temperature for a while, you can rest it in a cool box.

Step 9 - Pull the pork

The pork should be tender enough that you can tear into with your hands, but if it's too hot, use some forks to rip it apart and shred it to create 'pulled pork'.

Step 10 - Add the sauce

If you're serving the pork straight away, add some sweet BBQ sauce - we love the Sauce Shop.

In the video I was cooking pulled pork for the next day, so added sauce before I reheated it to prevent it drying out.

Step 11 - Enjoy!

Pulled pork goes great with everything - on a burger, in a flatbread or with crispy potatoes and BBQed corn on the cob.