Many countries have a version of BBQ. This is the one she and I love.

Real BBQ is smoked with wood. Some people add wood chips to a propane grill. That isn’t the way it is done. This is our wood pellet smoker. Expensive but worth every Euro.

This is a well prepared pork butt that has just been placed on the smoker. My favorite dry rub is called Memphis Dust and we make it ourselves according to Meathead’s recipe. It results in a crispy black bark that is way beyond awesome after 10 to 12 hours of smoking. There are no shortcuts to making great BBQ.

It is beginning to look like BBQ, but still has a long way to go. The fat is working its magic, the meat is slowly pulling away from the bone and the bark is beginning to form. I’ve found two temperature probes, one in each end of the cut of meat give a better indication of the internal temperature of the meat. When the internal temperature reaches 203 degrees Fahrenheit (95 degrees Celsius) it is when the real magic happens.

Out of the smoker it comes. The black is misleading because it is in no way burned. It is literally ambrosia of the Gods. Within a minute or two is when we pull chunks of meat off and enjoy something that you can only get if you do your own smoking. No place that serves BBQ can begin to match the flavor the of right here and now.

Absolute perfection. The red is what is called the smoke ring. It is NOT raw meat. My process is to take the Butt out of the refrigerator (I want it cold) then set the smoker to just smoke for several hours before raising the temperature to 230 degrees Fahrenheit (110 degrees Celsius), and some 10 plus hours later this is the result.

The cut section of shoulder blade pulls away from the meat. The term pork butt is misleading. To we Americans, the butt is a reference to the hip. That cut of pork is called the ham. The pork butt is really part of the shoulder. Words have meaning until they don’t.

Pulled pork is literally torn apart, hence the name ‘pulled pork.” These things have the appearance of bear claws/paws and they can and do definitely rip the pork apart. The best pieces have some of the black bark on them. If you’ve never had pulled pork immediately after taking it off the smoker, you really don’t know what pulled pork is all about.

We do not put any BBQ sauce on our pulled pork. Let me back up and say we do when we eat at BBQ restaurants, but never on our homemade pulled pork. It simply doesn’t need any sauce. In fact sauce detracts from the taste. We’ve never made BBQ from beef or lamb ( my life partner doesn’t care for them) likewise we don’t do chicken either as I can’t seem to prevent it from drying out when smoking it. In fact, it took me a few times to discover the best way to make this awesome pulled pork. I once even tried to smoke two butts at once. Too much meat for the size of my smoker, never again. We both grew up in the US Midwest where roast beef and mashed potatoes are taken for granted. We gave those up years ago and have never looked back.