If you're newer to grilling and have never smoked a pork butt, you may want to read through my guide on traditional slow smoked pork butt first. This will give you a base knowledge of what you're working with! If not, check out the post above and dive in!

Start by removing your pork butt roast from your fridge 1-2 hours before you plan on smoking it. This helps bring it up to a slightly warmer temperature before getting it on the grill.

Prep your pork butt by scoring the fat cap (if yours has one), lightly coating the entire roast in a binder (I use yellow mustard) and then covering it generously in a spice dry rub you prefer. Set it aside on a cooling rack over a foil pan.

Set our grill for "two-zone" cooking. Heat only one of your burners and prepare your smoke tube or wood chip packets. I go in-depth in the post above regarding these two methods to help walk you through this. You will need to replace your smoking method a handful of times throughout your cook to get enough smoke flavor into your food (so read the notes above)!

Get the grill to hold a steady temperature of 225-250 F. For me this was lighting my far left burner to high initially, then I reduced it fully to low and it held steady around 250 F. Dial in your grill (they are all slightly different).

Place your smoking method over the direct heat, place a pan full of water (this helps keep the pork moist) and the pan with your pork onto the cooler side of your grill (fat cap side closer to the heat source).

Keep your grill closed as much as possible and let it smoke. Use a smoker friendly thermometer to watch the temperature. Spray the bark with water as needed and check your smoke every hour or so.

When your pork butt hits 160-165 F. Place it fully in the foil pan and wrap the entire pan tightly in foil. This will help you get passed the stall and will speed the cooking process up a bit. You can stop infusing with smoke around this point (it took about 4 hours to get to this point with a 4lb pork butt).

Pulled pork is best when the roast hits between 195-205 F. When you insert the thermometer probe it should feel like softened butter and easily go into the meat. Pull from the grill and let it rest a bit before shredding.

To shred, remove the bone (if it's a bone in roast) and pull it. Pulling by hand is my favorite method because I can also feel any larger pieces of fat that didn't render and remove it (wear gloves).