Low-and-Slow Pulled Pork

Ingredients

• One 10-pound skinless, bone-in pork butt, or one 6-pound skinless, boneless pork butt
• Kosher salt
• Brown or yellow mustard, for slathering
• Hot sauce, such as Texas Pete, for slathering
• Lean and Mean Dry Rub for Pulled Pork
• Eastern North Carolina Vinegar-and-Pepper Barbecue Sauce
• Potato buns, for serving
• Coleslaw, for serving

Directions

1. The day before you plan to smoke the pork, place a wire rack on a rimmed baking sheet. Salt the pork shoulder liberally on every surface, lay it on the rack, and chill it at least overnight (8 hours) or as long as 24 hours.
2. Pick up the pork shoulder, take away the rack, and put the meat right on the rimmed baking sheet. Arrange it with the fat cap facing down. Coat all the exposed surfaces with a generous, even layer of mustard and hot sauce, if desired.
3. Scatter the dry rub evenly over the coated parts of the shoulder, aiming for full coverage without packing it on too thickly. Flip the pork so the fat cap is up. Add the same mustard and hot sauce coating, then the dry rub, to that remaining side.
4. Heat the smoker to 225 degrees F (107 degrees C), using whatever hardwood you like. The setup depends on your smoker: it may run on logs of wood, charcoal with wood chunks or chips scattered over it, pellets, electricity, or gas. For the whole cook, do your best to hold a steady 225 degrees F and keep clean smoke moving; think thin blue wisps rather than dense white clouds.
5. Place the pork in the smoker with the fat cap on top. Pour 1 inch or 2 inches of water into a disposable aluminum roasting pan and place that in the smoker too. If there is no drip tray, position the water pan underneath the pork so it catches the drippings; if there is one, tuck the pan anywhere it fits.
6. Continue smoking until a leave-in probe thermometer reads 195 degrees F (90 degrees C) at the center of the shoulder; keep the probe clear of the bone. Plan on about 12 to 15 hours, but don't marry the clock, because the actual time depends on the steadiness of the smoker, the shoulder's size and thickness, and plenty of other little barbecue variables. Boneless pork will be done sooner than bone-in, and either way, start checking the temperature often as it gets close. Take the pork shoulder out of the smoker and rest it for 20 minutes.
7. Pull the pork apart with 2 forks or bear claws, making thin, stringy shreds, and break any fat that has not rendered into small bits. As you come across bones or butcher's twine from a tied deboned shoulder, discard them. Crumble the bark, meaning the dark crust, into little pieces and fold it into the pulled pork. Toss everything well so the bark and fat are spread through the meat. If you want a finer texture, chop the pork more.
8. Drizzle barbecue sauce over the pork to taste, stirring until it is worked through. Add more salt if you think it needs it.
9. Heap the pulled pork onto potato buns, add coleslaw, close the sandwiches, and bring them to the table with extra barbecue sauce to pass around.