Mix all ingredients for the rub, breaking up any clumps of brown sugar and pour into a shaker bottle.
Unwrap and rinse pork shoulder under cold water. Pat dry with paper towels and truss the roast with butcher’s twine. If you’re not familiar with this style of trussing, you can also just tie a series of loops around the roast to keep it uniform in shape while it spins. Be sure to tie both sideways and end to end.
Slide the roast onto the rotisserie spit, avoiding the large shoulder-blade bone in the roast. Alternatively, you can use a boneless pork shoulder; it will just require some extra tying to keep it in shape. Lock rotisserie forks into place.
Lightly coat the entire pork shoulder with yellow mustard and then season liberally, being sure to cover all surfaces of the roast.
Light your grill and set up for rotisserie grilling, establishing temperature at 250° F. For gas grill, light your smoke tube at this point and for charcoal grill, add wood chunks to coals.
Place a disposable drip pan in the middle of the grill under where the pork will spin to catch any drippings. Insert spit into rotisserie motor and turn on. Close the lid and let the rotisserie go to work. Mop pork once an hour with mop sauce for 6 hours.
Remove pork from grill. After 6 hours it will be in the neighborhood of 160 °F. Verify this with a reliable quick read thermometer.
Increase grill temperature to 300 °F. While the grill is heating up, remove pork from the spit and place it on a triple sheet of aluminum foil. Pour drippings from the drip pan over top of the pork and wrap as tightly as possible in foil.
Place wrapped pork into the drip pan (to prevent leaks). Insert a reliable leave-in thermometer into the roast, being careful not to touch the bone. Place pork back on the grill until internal temperature reaches 203 °F (about 2 hours for a 7 pound butt).
Remove pork from grill or oven and cut a small hole in the foil to let out any steam. Allow pork to rest for one hour. Pour off drippings into fat separator and discard grease. Shred pork and drizzle with drippings. Serve on a bun with Eastern Carolina mop sauce or with Kansas City BBQ sauce for incredible vinegar pulled pork sandwiches or just plain with your favorite BBQ sides.
Notes
Pork shoulder roast, aka Boston Butt or pork butt, isn’t something that’s traditionally cooked on the rotisserie. Generally, this large cut of meat is cooked low and slow in a grill or smoker. When done properly, pork shoulder is my favorite of the traditional American style BBQ foods, but too often it’s pretty dry.Today we’re going to combine two of my favorite styles of cooking in what is at the very least non-traditional BBQ, but trust me—it’s outstanding and anything but dry. I love low and slow smoking. I’m also enamored with rotisserie cooking. Why not combine the two and create a pork shoulder that self-bastes and stays moist, while taking on some amazing apple and hickory wood smoke?