Mix above BBQ sauce ingredients in a sauce pot and bring to a boil making sure sugar dissolves.  Let cool and store in a glass covered container in  refrigerator.

Apply a good coating of chili powder, salt and black pepper to Boston Butt and place on a broiler pan uncovered fattest side up. Add several cups of water to the broiler pan and place in an oven or smoker at 225 degrees for 6 to 8 hours or until internal temperature is at least 160 degrees F. and meat easily pulls from the bone.  If you want to turn the meat every few hours that is ok too.  A few pixs along the way:

Boston Butt ready for the dry rub.

Boston Butt with the dry rub applied.

Boston Butt was first placed in my outside smoker and stayed at least eight (8) hours and brought inside and placed in oven set at 225 degrees F. for 2 hours until the internal temperature was 167 degrees F.  Note:  My outside "PORTERSTEIN" smoker heating elements would only get the cabinet temperature up to 200 degrees before placing the Boston Butt inside and then dropped about 20 degrees....heating elements are too small but work great for the lower temperature sausage making since I don't want the temperature above 165 degrees F.  However, you can get a good hickory smoke flavor using smoldering hickory sawdust.  Go to  http://www.portercalls.com/ShortStories/sausage_making.htm for a pix of my smoker in operation. 

The little inexpensive digital thermometer works great!

Boston Butt pulled from the bone and ready to chop....my buddies use their power meat grinders with a course plate but not necessary for a single Boston Butt.  A pair of meat cleavers works very well too in the hands of someone who knows how to use them.

Chopped Boston Butt ready for a "metamorphic" change into some wonderful pork BBQ Anson County (Eastern) North Carolina Style.  I can almost smell and taste the BBQ sauce from the picture.  My taste buds did a little dance as if biting into a fresh cut lemon slice.  Add as much of the BBQ sauce as you desire but with this sauce, the more you add the hotter it gets.  This sauce is medium to hot and a good balance between the hot pepper, sugar and vinegar flavors and they compliment one another very well.  There are millions of BBQ sauce recipes around and this one will get you in the ball park.  I call this sauce a more or less table sauce since it has the tomato catsup and brown sugar in there and if you apply it to the meat while cooking it will turn very dark on you.  I don't think soaking the Boston Butt down with BBQ sauce while cooking is necessary since most of it will leak off with the melted fat from the Boston Butt while it is cooking.   Eastern North Carolina BBQ Sauce recipes omit the catsup and sugar and stick with a vinegar based BBQ sauce with black pepper, cayenne pepper and maybe chili powder while most of the Western NC style Lexington region have a tomato based BBQ style of sauce and use pork shoulders instead of a split hog.  There is no set rule, whatever you like fix it!  I lean toward the Western NC style of BBQ using pork shoulders which can be done on a small outside grill, smoker or inside oven without having to use a large pig cooker outside for a spit hog  and a tomato base BBQ sauce but like both styles of BBQ.  Visit http://hkentcraig.com/BBQ.html for info on Eastern NC BBQ.  BBQ done right especially the whole split hog slow cooked over charcoal or hickory embers what we call pulled BBQ which is succulent and juicy with a hint of hickory smoke flavor served right off the cooker whereby melting in your mouth doesn't really need a sauce but to me it is like icing on the cake.  My city slicker version or quick fix BBQ can't compete with a slow hickory ember fired/cooked BBQ but will get you by until you can do better and the sauce does take it to a higher level.  It will beat out any store bought BBQ around these parts for sure.  Many here in the County wrap the pork shoulder in heavy gauge aluminum foil leaving a small vent hole in the top reducing the cooking/smoking time while retaining a lot of moisture and is more or less "steam cooking" the pork shoulder on an outside grill or inside oven and it is some excellent non-traditional BBQ.   This type of BBQ has the grill/smoker temperature running around 270 degrees and some run it close to 350 degrees F. for short periods of time and reduce it back down to around 270 degrees.  That is another recipe and technique in it's self and will do one down the road for the web if there is enough interest.

Pix of my chopped pork BBQ platter with marinated slaw, hush puppies and deck container grown tomatoes.  I am tight as a Georgia tick on the back of a coonhound in the month of July after working my way slowly and deliberately through this BBQ platter savoring each delicious bite with the spicy kick from the BBQ and the marinated slaw whereby awaking any would be dormant taste bud saying, YeeHigh!  Give this BBQ recipe a try! 

Bill aka Mickey Porter 10-05-08  

PS  I am familiar with our local Eastern style of BBQing of which my brother Allen Lee Porter has been doing for decades and I consider him a "Grill Master."  He is a welder by trade and has made all sorts of pig cookers from the old traditional oblong type fuel oil tanks with dual heating chambers for using hickory embers, charcoal and propane gas.  There are quite a few old timers around here that still burn down hickory wood to produce live embers but many have switched over to charcoal or propane and use a separate smoking chamber for a cold hickory smoke.  It might be all in my mind, but I believe I can taste a difference between propane cooked BBQ versus hickory embers fired cookers.  Pix of my brother Allen and Rachel Myers taken in Oct. 1968:

One of my brother in laws, Boyce Adcock is a  Grill Master too when it comes to BBQing Pork and/or chicken.  He uses mostly charcoal and turns out a first quality product.  Inserted a few pixs of Boyce BBQing at the Policeman's River Lodge on 12-23-06 for an annual Adcock family Christmas Party:

The ole hand meat grinder goes a lot faster than the meat cleaver when you have half a dozen more of Boston Butts to chop!

This BBQing was done outside and they have run out of daylight!  We had a great feast and party.