Mix your injection liquid the night before or at least 2 hours before your cook. Combine broth, apple juice, Worcestershire sauce, and apple cider vinegar in a small saucepan over low heat. Melt the clarified butter into the liquid and whisk in the kosher salt, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, and cayenne. Heat gently to around 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, just warm enough to dissolve the salt completely without cooking anything. Whisk vigorously for 60 seconds then pour through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Let cool to room temperature before injecting so you do not begin any premature cooking of the meat surface. A well-blended injection liquid should be smooth, fragrant, and slightly golden from the butter.

Prep your pork shoulder by removing it from the refrigerator 30 to 45 minutes before injecting. Pat it completely dry with paper towels and place it fat cap down in a deep roasting pan or injecting tray. This gives you the best access to the thickest muscle groups where injection is most important. Inspect the surface for any silverskin or hard fat deposits and trim them away so your rub and injection can penetrate effectively. A properly trimmed pork butt with a quarter-inch fat cap will render beautifully over a long smoke and give you incredible bark without blocking flavor from getting in.

Load your injector syringe by submerging the needle tip in the injection liquid and drawing the plunger back slowly until the barrel is full. Tap the side of the barrel gently to release any air bubbles, then depress the plunger slightly to purge any remaining air from the needle tip. For an 8 to 10 pound pork shoulder, you will want to use approximately 1 to 1.5 cups of injection liquid total, working in multiple fill-ups of the syringe. Keep a paper towel ready because the injection liquid will spray and drip as you work through the muscle.

Begin injecting at the thickest point of the pork shoulder, typically the center of the muscle away from the bone. Insert the needle deep into the meat, going in about 1.5 to 2 inches, and depress the plunger slowly and steadily. You want to inject about 1 ounce of liquid per site. As you slowly withdraw the needle, continue depressing the plunger to distribute liquid along the entire channel you just created. Work in a grid pattern across the surface, spacing each injection site about 1 inch apart in every direction. Rotate the cut and inject from all four sides to ensure complete coverage throughout the entire muscle. You will see the surface swell slightly and liquid may bubble back out of previous holes, which is completely normal.

Once injection is complete, immediately apply your dry rub. Work the rub into every surface of the pork shoulder with firm pressure, making sure to coat the sides, the bone end, and especially the fat cap. The rub will begin interacting with the surface moisture pulled out by the injection, forming a sticky paste that will later become your bark. Wrap the injected and rubbed pork shoulder in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but ideally overnight for up to 12 hours. This rest time allows the injection to distribute more evenly throughout the muscle through osmosis and gives the rub time to form a proper pellicle on the surface.

Fire up the grill or smoker and bring it to a stable 225 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit before the meat ever goes on. For pork shoulder, we want chunks of oak, hickory, or apple wood for smoke. Give your smoker 30 to 45 minutes to reach temp and stabilize before adding the meat. Pull your pork shoulder from the refrigerator, unwrap it, and allow it to sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes while the smoker comes up to temp. Place the pork shoulder fat cap up directly on the smoker grate, close the lid, and do not open it for at least 3 hours. Maintaining that steady low and slow temperature is what allows the injection to work its magic from the inside while smoke builds bark from the outside.

Monitor the internal temp using your instant read thermometer, checking every hour after the first 3 hours. Around 165 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit you will hit the stall, where collagen is converting to gelatin and evaporative cooling holds the internal temp steady for sometimes 2 to 3 hours. This is completely normal and not a sign anything is wrong. At this point you can wrap tightly in butcher paper or heavy-duty foil with a splash of apple juice inside the wrap to power through the stall. Return the wrapped pork shoulder to the smoker and continue cooking until the internal temp reaches 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit and a probe slides in and out with absolutely zero resistance, like it is going into warm butter.

Once the pork shoulder reaches probe-tender perfection, remove it from the smoker and rest the meat without unwrapping it. Place it in a dry cooler lined with a towel and close the lid. Rest the meat for a minimum of 1 hour and up to 2 hours for the best results. During this rest, the muscle fibers relax and reabsorb all those incredible injected and rendered juices that have been working through the meat during the entire cook. When you finally open that wrap, you will be greeted with a cloud of steam and a pool of deeply flavored jus that you can pour back over the pulled meat when serving. Pull, chop, or slice and serve immediately for peak flavor and texture.