Lay your pork shoulder on a clean workspace.
Use a sharp paring knife to trim away any bone slivers from the exposed meat, and any excess fat.
Your goal is to “square up” the long sides of the shoulder to make it as uniform and as easy to handle as you can get it.
Place the shoulder in a large deep aluminum pan.
Prepare your pork marinade and load it into your injector.
Inject the shoulder with 2 to 3 quarts of the injection, using the larger amount for bigger shoulders.
You want to make your injections all over the shoulder, about 1 square inch away from one another.
Let the injected shoulder “marinate” while injected, loosely covered, in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, remove the shoulder from the refrigerator.
Turn it upside down in the pan so that any excess injection can infuse the meat.
Let it sit upside down for 15 to 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare your smoker and heat it to 250°F.
Take the shoulder out of the pan and sprinkle the rub all over it, making sure to get the area by the shank (you can see two round shank bones that are exposed on both ends; it will be the wider, less narrow end).
Place the shoulder in its pan again, and put it in the smoker.
Smoke it uncovered for 3 hours without opening the smoker if possible.
After 3 hours, remove the shoulder from the smoker.
Pour the apple juice into a clean aluminum pan and transfer the shoulder into the new pan.
Discard the old pan.
Cover the shoulder in its new pan with foil and place it in the smoker.
Cook for 6 hours, or until the internal temperature of the thickest part of the shoulder reads 205°F.
Remove the pan from the smoker.
Discard the foil covering.
Brush the pork glaze all over both sides of the shoulder.
Return the shoulder to the pan, put the pan back in the smoker and smoke uncovered for 1 hour while adding no more heat to the smoker and allowing the internal temperature of the smoker to drop.
The shoulder will effectively be resting in the smoker this way.
After 1 hour, remove the pan from the smoker and serve your shoulder in your favorite way.
Here in South Georgia, we don’t slice our shoulders—we pull them apart in chunks (hence the name “pulled pork”).
But if you like slices, feel free.
Otherwise, you can use butcher knives or tongs or put some heavy gloves on your hands and pull that meat apart.
You can pile it on platters and let guests make pulled pork sandwiches, or you can further chop up the meat (for “chopped pulled pork”) after you’ve pulled it, if you like.
