Hickory Smoked Pulled Pork Shoulder (Low-and-Slow BBQ Recipe)

A bone-in Boston butt with a sweet hickory bark is the pit's ultimate reward: hours of thin blue smoke turning a tough shoulder into tender, mahogany-crusted strands you pull apart by hand. This is a true hickory smoked pulled pork shoulder, built for a full day on the smoker.

It's one of the 20 recipes inside our Smoker Cookbook, and we're sharing it in full so you can taste the standard before you buy the book. Clear the day: the hands-on work is brief, but ten hours of low, steady smoke do the heavy lifting.

Why this recipe works

The method leans on patience over shortcuts: a dry brine and rub set overnight-style in the fridge, a 4-hour open smoke to build the bark, then a double-foil wrap the moment the internal hits 165°F/74°C to power through the stall without losing colour. Pulling only at 203°F/95°C — when the blade bone twists free — is what makes the shoulder shred cleanly.

Ingredients

Pork shoulder

• 850 g bone-in pork shoulder
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 150 ml apple juice

Rub & wood

• 1 tbsp smoked paprika
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 3 hickory wood chunks
• 1 tsp mustard powder

Optional garnish

• Pickled red onion ribbons

Serves 2 · Prep 25 min · Cook 10 h · 548 kcal per serving

Instructions

1. Dry brine and rub. Pat the shoulder dry and score the fat cap in a diamond pattern. Combine sugar, salt, paprika, pepper and mustard powder. Massage into every surface and rest uncovered in the fridge for 1 hour.
2. Fire up hickory. Stabilise the smoker at 250°F/121°C with hickory chunks over glowing charcoal. Place the pork fat-side up on the grate and smoke undisturbed for 4 hours to build a mahogany bark.
3. Spritz and wrap. Spritz every 60 minutes with apple juice. When the bark sets and the internal reads 165°F/74°C, wrap in double foil with a splash of juice to push through the stall without losing colour.
4. Rest and pull. Cook to 203°F/95°C internal, until the blade bone twists free cleanly. Rest wrapped for 60 minutes, then shred by hand, folding the crusted bark back through the tender strands.

Chef's tip

Hickory can turn acrid if smoke billows white. Aim for thin blue smoke by keeping vents open and chunks sitting on hot coals, never smouldering.

Get the full Smoker Cookbook

Loved this one? It's a single recipe from a 20-strong collection of smoker cooking built the same way — clear ingredients, exact temperatures, no guesswork. Grab the full Smoker Cookbook below.