Carolina-Style pulled pork Baste/sauce

1 tablespoon black pepper

2 tablespoons dark molasses

1 cup water

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground cayenne (**read notes first)

1/2 cup straight Bourbon whiskey

1 1/2 cups cider vinegar

2 - 4 Chipotle Chile peppers, chopped

1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

1.5 T brown sugar

Boil sauce for 5 minutes, shred the pork, and sauce with liquid.

My sauce experience:

I’ve used this whole amount on 3.5 lbs of pulled meat.

If you taste the sauce, plain, you’ll be surprised at how spicy it is… Don’t worry, because the fat content of the pork, takes the heat away…

I usually don’t have chipotle peppers, so instead I always shake some rub into the sauce, and add 1/4 t of chipotle ground pepper. (which is smokey tasting, and hot). – I’ve found you need that couple shakes of rub in the sauce. I’ve used the pepper flakes, cayenne, ground chipotle, and simmered the sauce with a Thai green chili. –and it still wasn't too hot. It was great!

My notes on amounts and for pairing with slaw/buns

Adults eat about 1/4 lb of meat each (4oz)

The shoulder weighed 6 lbs, bone in before cooking. We ran out of meat... (calculations indicate each adult ate 4.32oz or 1/4 lb of meat but everyone had eaten and some had 2nds)

-of the 36 small potato rolls and one bag hot dog rolls. we only had 1 dog bun left and about 8 of the small rolls. So, about 18 adults ate all the pork from that 6lb bone in shoulder

experience with smoking the pork:

-when you go to the store, your looking for: pork butt/pork shoulder/picnic shoulder/shoulder butt. it will have the bone in and be between 6-15 lbs. You need to expect that your cooked and de-boned result will be 1/3 less than your starting weight. example: for a 6.45 lb shoulder, you end up with 4.33 lb of meat once cooked and bone taken out.

-Don't start with a cold shoulder! It will take too long to get up to temperature. I learned my lesson, after a 6 lb roast took 12 hrs @ 220 degrees just to reach 170. (supposed to get to 190). I ended up cooking it another 5 hrs, the next day at 325 degrees in order to finish it.

-use some hickory for your smoke wood. You need at least some hickory, to get the flavor you expect out of pulled pork. Soak your wood chips in water for at least an hour before you smoke.

Here's what works well:

Thaw meat, put on a rub for 24hrs, bring up to room temp before putting it on the smoker.

start it on smoker at 5pm

take off and put in oven (covered) at 11pm on 200 heat.

it will be done, next morning abound 10 or 11.

The basic Rub: mix these up

3/4 cup Paprika

1/4 cup of these:

Salt

Sugar (I used a combination of white and brown)

Black Pepper

2 Tablespoons of these:

Chili Powder

Garlic Powder

Onion Powder

Ground Cayanne pepper