Start by trimming your pork jowl if needed. You want a fat cap of about one-quarter inch thickness - enough to render down beautifully and baste the meat throughout the cook, but not so thick that it creates a rubbery layer. Using a sharp knife, score the fat cap in a crosshatch pattern, making cuts about one inch apart and slicing just deep enough to penetrate the fat without cutting into the meat below. This scoring allows the rub to penetrate deeper and gives the fat a better chance to render completely during the low and slow cook.

Coat the entire surface of the pork jowl with a thin, even layer of yellow mustard. Do not worry about the mustard flavor - it cooks off completely and simply acts as an excellent binder that helps every granule of your dry rub stick to the surface of the meat. Make sure to work the mustard into those scored fat cap cuts as well.

In a small mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar, smoked paprika, kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, and dried thyme. Mix thoroughly until evenly blended. This is your dry rub, and it is designed to build a bold, caramelized bark with just the right balance of sweet heat and savory depth. Apply the rub generously to all sides of the jowl, pressing it firmly into the meat and working it into every crevice and the scored fat cap cuts. Let the seasoned jowl rest at room temperature for 30 minutes while you prepare the smoker.

Fire up the smoker and bring it to a steady 225 degrees Fahrenheit. Achieving temperature stability before you put the meat on is critical - a smoker that is climbing or dropping in temperature produces uneven results. Once you hit 225 degrees Fahrenheit and it has been holding steady for at least 15 minutes, add two to three fist-sized chunks of hickory or applewood directly to the coals or into the firebox. You are looking for thin blue smoke, not thick white billowing smoke. Thin blue smoke is clean and imparts that beautiful flavor. Thick white smoke can make your bark taste bitter.

Place the pork jowl on the smoker grate fat cap side up. Positioning it fat cap up allows the rendering fat to naturally baste the meat as it drips down through the muscle fibers during the cook. Close the lid and let the smoker do its work. Resist the urge to open the lid during the first two hours - every peek adds time and disrupts your smoke environment. After the first two hours, check the color of the bark. You are looking for a deep reddish-brown mahogany color starting to form on the exterior.

At the two-hour mark, begin spritzing the jowl with apple cider vinegar every 45 minutes to an hour. A light spritz adds a touch of moisture to the surface, prevents the bark from becoming too hard too early, and adds a subtle brightness to the finished flavor. Do not saturate the meat - a few pumps from a spray bottle is all you need. Continue cooking at 225 degrees Fahrenheit and monitor the internal temp using your instant read thermometer.

Around the three to four hour mark, your jowl may hit a temperature stall somewhere between 155 and 170 degrees Fahrenheit. This is completely normal and happens as evaporative cooling slows down the internal temperature rise. You have two options: power through the stall by maintaining your temperature and giving it more time, or wrap the jowl tightly in butcher paper and return it to the smoker to push through the stall faster. Butcher paper allows some moisture to escape while still holding in enough heat to break through the stall, and it does a better job of preserving bark than aluminum foil.

Continue cooking until the internal temp of the thickest part of the jowl reaches between 195 and 203 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature range, the collagen in the meat has fully converted to gelatin, the fat has rendered down to a silky, melt-in-your-mouth consistency, and the bark has set into that deep, crackling exterior crust you have been working toward. Probe the meat in multiple spots - you want consistent readings throughout. Total cook time will typically run five to six hours at 225 degrees Fahrenheit for a three-pound jowl.

Once the jowl hits your target internal temp, pull it off the smoker immediately. Do not skip this step: rest the meat for a minimum of 30 minutes, ideally 45 minutes, loosely tented with foil on a wire rack. Resting allows the juices that have been pushed toward the center of the meat during cooking to redistribute evenly throughout every slice. Cutting into it too early means all of those beautiful juices run right out onto your cutting board instead of staying where they belong - inside the meat.

After resting, slice the smoked pork jowl against the grain into slices about one-quarter to one-half inch thick. Look at that smoke ring - that deep pink layer just beneath the bark surface is the hallmark of a properly smoked piece of meat, and it tells everyone at your table that you put in the real work. Serve immediately and watch it disappear.