A BBQ Pork Rub for All of Your Favorites

Creating delicious smoked pork can require patience during cooking, a great tasting seasoning to add to the flavor and the right cut of meat. When we think of pork, there are many different parts that can be used to create delicious meals. Whether it is pork chops on the grill or a smoked pork shoulder, every part of the hog is in play for making tasty barbecue that your whole family will love.

At Casa M Spice CoⓇ, our BBQ pork rub is called Whole HogⓇ for a reason. Every part of the hog has flavor to offer and you can create some great meals by using different pork cuts.

Today, we will look at the process of making delicious pork butt -- another name for pork shoulder -- and how you can use our BBQ pork rub to enhance your meals.

Pork butt recipes use a bone-in pork shoulder, which you may find labeled as pork butt at the local supermarket. The name can be confusing since you would imply that the pork butt would come from the butt end of the pig, but in reality, all of these labels are for the pork shoulder.

Pork shoulder has many layers of muscle that are connected with tissue. The tissue makes it a great choice for smoking. The slow cooking method of a smoker is perfect for breaking down the tissue and connective fibers and making it easy to pull the pork apart or slice it. The last thing you want to give people is a cut of meat that hasn’t been cooked enough to break down those fibers, making for a tougher piece of meat. The smoking process makes the meat more tender and flavorful.

The smoking process for pork butt is actually really simple. A good recipe for pork butt doesn’t require any additional steps like injecting the meat or doing anything special to the meat. All you need is a good cut of meat, a smoker, and good seasoning. Using our Whole HogⓇ BBQ pork rub, you get added flavors like paprika, salt, pepper and sugar that helps create a delicious bark on the outside of the meat.

To start the smoking process, heat the smoker to 225 degrees. You can use a variety of woods, but hickory, apple, and mesquite tend to produce great results. If you are trying to time the smoking process, you can safely estimate that for each pound the meat is, it will add two hours of cook time. So if you have an eight-pound pork shoulder, it will require approximately 16 hours of cooking time for the best results. Remember that this is roughly an estimate and all meats are different, so the time may vary.

You will want to have a meat thermometer to keep track of the progress of the pork as it is smoking. The temperature of the meat will start to rise quickly to around 145 degrees, but the cooking process slows after that and will take several hours for the temperature to increase. As the slow cooking process continues, the tissues should start to break down when the temperature reaches 195 degrees. You can wait until the temperature reaches 200 degrees to allow the meat to break down and fall apart even more, but the meat should be nearly complete with the cooking process at 195 degrees. You can let the meat rest briefly before slicing or pulling apart the pork to create delicious pulled pork. When the meat is resting, make sure it remains covered so that the heat is retained and the juices and moisture within the meat stay present.

Adding to the flavors of pork shoulder is easy when you have Casa M Spice CoⓇ. Whole HogⓇ is loaded with all natural ingredients that complement the natural flavor of the meat perfectly. It has a natural sweetness and a light touch of heat from ground chiles that provide a perfect balance of sweet and spicy flavors. Like all of our spice rubs, our BBQ pork rub is a low sodium blend, meaning that you can season to taste and not worry about oversalting or overseasoning.

At Casa M Spice CoⓇ, we like to make you feel like family. All of the spice blends we have to offer were tested on family and close friends first at everything from backyard barbecues to holiday parties. With a unique mix of Cajun, Mexican and Southwestern influences, this is a spice blend unlike anything you have ever had before.