TASTE OF SUMMER. This Pulled Pork Sanwich with Mango BBQ Sauce goes great with coleslaw.

Here are seven tips for superior pulled pork: crafting the best flavor, cooking methods for foodservice, making the most of menu potential, knowing the difference between a few of the most loved barbecue sauces, and more.

1. Low and Slow

It bears repeating: “Low and slow; low and slow; low and slow,” intones ballpark executive chef James Major of Progressive Field in Cleveland, OH, emphasizing the importance of the cooking method for fall-of-the-bone pork.

During a recent afternoon Cleveland Indians baseball game, Major showed off the summer's best new menu selections featuring pulled pork (more on that later) and boasted of a smoker that can handle 400 to 500 pounds of pork shoulder in the stadium's main kitchen.

There is a reason “low and slow” is the mantra to many pit masters and foodservice operators alike, as the way to tender, fall-apart meat (pulled pork heaven): During the process, the collagen in those cuts of pork is broken down while the flavor gets better and better. Try to cook a pork shoulder in a pan and the result would be pork purgatory (tough meat that you could not pull with a fork, and without the complex flavor customers expect).

When the night shift leaves at the University of Oklahoma's kitchen, the electric smoker begins work, says Assistant Director of Foodservice Frank Henry. For 12 hours, pork is surrounded by hickory smoke at around 225°F, becoming succulent.

“When you take it out, you can pull it apart with your fingers — just as the name implies — and it…is…good,” Henry says, emphasizing the last few words.

2. Dry Rub and/or Brine

Chefs can begin developing flavor in pulled pork before it meets the heat. Major brines pork shoulders overnight or longer.

“You've gotta brine,” Major says. “It loosens up the muscles and adds another layer of flavor.”

The brine should contain tastes that will complement the final product. For example, if Major will be making a barbecue sauce with beer to finish off the pulled pork, he will include beer in the brine. Adding a dry rub before cooking makes the pork even more flavorful, Major says.

The brown-sugar-and-paprika rub used by Robert Ginader, food service director at Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, is rubbed on a few hours before the pork is cooked.

“The rub is extremely important,” Ginader says. “It not only adds flavor, but it adds a protective crust as the meat cooks.”

3. Where There's Smoke, There's Flavor

Hickory wood chips are the chips of choice for smoking bone-in pork butt for the Sooner Smokehouse concept at the University of Oklahoma.

Having a smoker is great, because — in addition to being able to make pulled pork with smoky flavor in-house — by simply switching the wood chips, “you can switch up the flavor profile,” Henry says. He has used different wood chips to impart different flavors to many of the different items made in the smoker, such as brisket and sausage.