Sweet and Smokey Pulled Pork

I have to say this is my favorite creation so far. I really enjoy combining sweet and smoky flavors. You really can't go wrong using ingredients such as honey and brown sugar, which lend themselves especially well to pork. I think that using the pork butt (shoulder) also makes a big difference because it has just the right amount of fat to baste itself throughout the cooking process. If there was ever a meat that the crockpot was inspired by, it would have to be a toss up between pork butts and stew meat.
















Ingredients
1 2lb Pork Butt
2 tablespoons liquid smoke
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons honey
2 table spoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons of BBQ rub (I used Northwest Fire from Penzey's)
1 bottle of sweet and smoky style BBQ sauce (I used NOH Hawaiian BBQ sauce)

Directions
In a bowl mix together the liquid smoke, water, Worcestershire sauce, honey, brown and brown sugar until evenly mixed.

















Place the pork butt in a large bowl and pour the liquid mixture over it, turning the pork a few times to ensure that it is fully covered. Pour out any excess liquid that has collected on the bottom of the bowl. Sprinkle the BBQ rub evenly over the meat and rotate until the meat is evenly coated. Pour about 4 tablespoons of BBQ sauce over the meat and once again (sorry for the repetitiveness here, I promise it will pay off) rotate the meat until it is fully covered.

Wrap the pork butt in 2 plastic bags doubled up so that nothing leaks out and leave in the fridge overnight to marinate (you do not have to do this, but marinating the meat for a few hours really will pay off).

Place the meat in the crockpot and cook for 10 hours on low (I just let cook while I was at work). While in this photo there appears to be some burning, the meat as just fine as you can see below.

Remove the meat from the crockpot and place in a large plastic container or bowl. Use two forks to shred the meat and add the rest of your BBQ sauce and give it a stir.
Serve on your favorite bread with some BBQ sauce and you are good to go! I wish I had picked up some coleslaw and pickles to go with this but the meat was delicious on it's own anyway.

Wrap Up:
I've come away from this recipe with a few thoughts.
1) for pulled pork, the pork butt is the only meat that should be used.
2) if you have the time to marinate, by all means marinate.
3) while I do still want to make my own BBQ sauce, if you look around the store a little bit and don't mind paying a little extra, there are plenty of good BBQ sauces out there.

Happy Cooking!