Pork Shoulder

[Tim Dolan]

Thanks for all of the replies. My game plan is going to be preheating the oven a good 30 minutes ahead of time, leave the shoulders out to bring them to room temp before they go in, then leave them in the oven for at least 7 hours and move them around every once in a while. I'll let you know how it works out.

[judiu]

So, how did it go?

[Tim Dolan]

It went perfectly. I put two 8 pound pork shoulders in a 300 degree oven for 7 hours and they came out gloriously. They were room temp when they went in, and at the end I bumped the temp up to 500 degress and rubbed the outside with a little brown sugar to give it a nicer crust. Everybody loved it.

My next question is for use in a convection oven. As luck would have it, my in-laws have a convection oven and also had a pork shoulder in the fridge, so I figured I'd make the pork shoulder today since I'm here and they have all the necessary ingredients on hand. I currently have two small pork shoulders in a very nice, new GE convection oven at 300 degrees. They've only been in for an hour and a half and they look much further along than they would be in a conventional oven.

So my questions are, would it be better for me to 1) leave them as is, but just pull them out about 2 hours earlier or 2) drop the temp to say 250 and leave them in for the same amount of time? Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Dave the Cook]

I'd drop the temp, if your schedule allows.

[Tim Dolan]

Temp dropped to 250 in a convection oven after roughly two hours at 300. Gonna let it go for another 4 hours. The outside already looks glorious.

[Tim Dolan]

Final update, 300 degree convection oven for 2 hours then dropped to 250 for 4 hours produced identical results. Everything turned out great. Thanks for the input folks.