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Smoked Pork Loin Recipe
Total cook time is between 1.75 and 2.5 hours depending on how tightly you watch the temps and how thick your pork loin is. Serves around 10.
Ingredients
- ~5lb Pork Loin - We're targeting around a 2-2.5 hour cook time, more meat will take longer
- Olive Oil - Enough to coat the loin in a thin layer. Alternatively, you can use cheap yellow mustard (it helps hold the rub well and the mustard flavor largely disappears during the cook)
- Rub of Choice - I like to whip up a Brown Sugar Bourbon style rub. The sweet and smoke combo is quite nice. As with all rubs, you'll want to be sure you have plenty.
- Wood Chips - For additional smoke flavor, I like hickory or applewood.
- Cold Beer - (optional) For drinking, I like a few light beers to keep an even keel.
Equipment
- Big Green Egg with ConvEggtor installed - If you don't yet have a Conveggtor, they are critical for doing any sort of slow cooking in an Egg.
- Thermometer - Ideally one with a long probe on a cord.
- Drip Tray - I usually just throw one of our older and more beat up baking sheets on top of the ConvEggtor.
Cook Steps
- Take a handful of wood chips and soak in a small bowl of water for 30minutes
- Remove pork from refrigerator. Prep by removing any fat beyond a small 1/4in cap. Cover in Olive Oil or mustard on all sides. Coat with dry rub to taste. I like a nice dense coating.
- Fill the fire basket with charcoal and light by placing a single lit starter cube on top of the coals with the top and bottom vents open. I use an electric coil starter, so I typically place the coil right on top for about five minutes when cooking indirect. Really you can start your egg like you would normally, but taking a more reserved approach to lighting the grill can save you some time brining the temperature back down.
- Add your soaked woodchips around the perimeter of the firebox. Be sure that your ConvEggtor and drip tray are in place! Adding them later can throw off your temperatures.
- Once the Egg thermometer is reading around 150F, adjust the bottom and top vent to 25% open. It should take around ten minutes for the temperatures to get to 225F. Once you get to 225F, take five minutes to play around with your vent settings until the heat is stable. For me, this means both vents will be barely open. I like for the top vent to always be at least a little cracked since it helps draw the smoke up and over the meat. Use the bottom vent for big changes in temp and the top vent to fine tune. It's okay if your temps spike occasionally as long as you stay below 250, not an exact science.
- Put the Pork on the grill centered above your drip tray. I go ahead and stick the thermometer in at this point, centered. Ideally, I won't open the Egg again until the meat is done. Monitor the temperatures and fiddle with the vents again until you're nice and stable somewhere around 225F.
- Check temperatures every 15 minutes and monitor loin temperature. After about 2 hours you should be approaching an internal temperature to your liking. I shoot for 140F with holdover usually getting us to around 145F, but make your own choices following applicable USDA guidelines. My total cook time ended up being 2 hours 18 minutes
- Rest for five minutes and then cut into .75 inch slices. I like using a serrated knife for pork.
Menu Considerations
The nice thing about smoking on a Big Green Egg is the phenomenal temperature stability when compared to thinner metal grills. You should have a decent amount of time between temperature checks to go and prep the rest of your menu. I like pairing with a hearty starch, salad, and dense vegetable. Note that the total cook time on the meat can range quite a bit, so manage expectations with guests and plan to keep the sides hot/cold.
Cheers and Bon Appétit!