Doing a small pulled pork on my pellet grill. Picked up this "picnic bone-in shoulder". I need to remove all that skin and some of the fat, right? This is my first time working with a cut with the skin on.
Also, what can I do with the skin? I'd hate to throw it away.
by Agitated_Olive_2618
17 Comments
Following! Are you making shredded pork or pernil?
I wouldn’t remove it. That’s all the flavor. Just make shallow cuts across the top all along one way then the other way perpendicular so they look like diamond patterns. Then rub seasoning down into the cuts. That’s your bark.
Personally I would have gotten a Boston shoulder butt for pulled pork.
Up to you but I personally would be taking it and most of that fat off as well. Every time I cook one with a slight fat cap, the fat gets tossed to the side so I don’t waste my bark on it anymore. I take it down to the meat.
I just smoked a shoulder like that yesterday. I removed the skin. I removed some of the excess fat, but left quite a bit there. Smoked at 250 for 6 hours then wrapped and smoked for another 2 hours at 275. Pulled it off at 205 and let it rest for an hour. It was fantastic
Cross cut , season well and use the skin after smoking for some killer chichrones!!!!
I would remove it. You could smoke it after removing for awhile and then chop it up and fry until crispy.
You don’t absolutely have to remove it. A lot of people leave it on and chop it up with the rest of the meat once it’s done. I always leave it on until it’s done cooking. It’s way easier to remove after the fat underneath is rendered. Plus it adds flavor during the cook.
Just score the fat so the rub can go down into the crevices of it
Cut a deep criss cross on it and salt it. It’ll get crispy. Leave it on
very hard to find a boston butt at shoprite i’ve noticed. these are more common there it seems. i’ve bought this once and removed the skin and it came out good but i wouldn’t do it again.
If you take it off you can make cracklins. Or just render it and save the lard for cooking other things.
Trim it first
This is a slightly different shoulder cut than the Boston butt traditionally used for bbq pulled pork.
It can still be used that way and others have made good suggestions for how to deal with the skin and fat here.
But there are a lot of recipes for this cut specifically that lean into the skin, scoring it, starting low and slow, and then finishing hot to get tender meat while crisping the skin. Someone already mentioned pernil, but there’s also stuff like porchetta or bo ssam that could work here as well.
I prefer to cut it just because of a texture issue. It doesn’t render well, so you’ll have globs of fat in some of your bites. Best method to cook shoulder… apply rub and smoke at 225F until stall (~165F). Place in an aluminum pan and add butter, BBQ sauce, honey/syrup, brown sugar, or whatever floats your boat. Tightly wrap the top with foil and cook at 275F until 205F. I then pull from the grill and let it rest a couple hours until it drops to 150F. Pour any rendered liquids in a container and then shred. Once the meat is shredded, reincorporate the juices back to the meat.
render the fat and make lard. easy to do.
Just did one yesterday, skin on. I cross cut, brushed with white vinegar and heavily salted the skin. The meat I used a rub. 80% of the skin was cracklins by the end. When it was done there was some extra fat to pull off and discard but otherwise came out great.