I looked at 3 groceries trying to find a nice boneless pork loin roast to do, with no success. So I settled on a pork loin end roast. Not my favorite– it has that weird bone– but I wanted to try brining it.
The day is partly cloudy, 65�, with a light breeze. The night before, I brined the 4.6 pound roast in a solution seasoned with crab boil, like I did the last turkey.
At 11:25am, I lit a Weber chimney-full of leftover charcoal, which took about 20 minutes to get going. At 11:45am, I poured the lit charcoal into the charcoal ring and added another Weber chimney-full of fresh unlit briquets. When they got going, in about another 15 minutes, I assembled the Bullet, putting the foil-covered water pan in place– adding a gallon of cool tap water– and leaving out the middle cooking grate. With the bottom vents each open one third, the temperature rose to 425�. I closed the vents down to 30/0/0% to bring the cooker down to my target cooking temperature of 225-250�.
At 12:30pm, the cooker had dropped to 325�, and I placed the roast on the top rack, along with a rack of pork spare ribs in a rib rack. Fifteen minutes later– when I noticed no smoke coming from the Bullet– I placed 2 chunks hickory wood and one of oak on top of the coals.
Over the course of the five and a half hour cook, temperatures were reasonably manageable, and stayed in the 225-250° range. I basted the roast at the 3-hour mark, and also turned the ribs. Around 4:00pm, I added some hot water to replenish the pan.
Around 5:00pm, I again turned and basted. The roast read 156� internal– my target being 161. I decided to leave the ribs on at this point, even though, on previous cooks, I had usually only cooked them a total of 4-1/2 hours. This proved to be a good decision, as the extra time rendered out quite a bit more fat, and the ribs were not the least bit greasy. fifteen minutes before I removed them, I glazed them liberally with my homemade sauce.
What have we learned? Let them ribs cook!
Next time, Rib Half Pork Loin Roast.