Barbecue Pork Loin with Bacon Weave and Nephews Pumpkin BBQ Sauce

Nephews Pumpkin BBQ Sauce - Yes It is Zippy

Tonight I smoked a pork loin on the Traeger with Nephews pumpkin barbecue sauce. Yes. I did say pumpkin bbq sauce.

Dylan is a home state boy (Raleigh - go NC State). We are buddies on Twitter, and he sent me out some of his barbeuce sauces to try. With it Halloween this weekend, the pumpkin barbecue sauce, of course, caught my eye and imagination.



I had to think on the flavors a bit. The pumpkin barbeuce has pumpkin - well duh of course - and also ghost peppers so some heat. Actually quite a bit of heat. Yes. I did have to taste a spoon of the sauce, and it was fab-u-licious.

Down at the Food Lion, they had pork loins on sale (like half price - yay), and I got to thinking that might be a good match there.

I figured I needed to balance sweet and heat on this one, so here's what I did:

1. I got around 3/4 cup brown sugar with a half loin and sprinkled in a little cinnamon (like 1/2 tsp) and a tad of nutmeg (like 1/4 tsp) and garlic (like 1/4 tsp). Then I rubbed that on the loin. It's not thick. Just a little sugar rub all over and some spots not really looking all covered. Light on rub.

2. I added a bacan weave. I put slices across the narrow way and then did like in and out long ways. It takes a while but is not hard once you get going. Tuck in on the bottom side and serve with the pretty side up - for a hint there.

3. Before I used a turner to put this on the smoker (bottom weave side down), I did sprinkle on some lemon pepper which I love. I went easy on that too. Just a quick dash.

4. I smoked low at around 300 to 350 degress F for about an hour and a half (and turned pretty weave side up around one hour). Temp was 140 F then at 1 1/2 hr, so I sauced with the Nephews Pumpkin BBQ sauce. You could use other sauces, but you won't get this same unique treat.



USDA suggest pork cooked to 160 F. So, I did sauce at 140. Then I waited about 15 minutes or so and checked. I pulled the loin between 150 and 155 F, because I know it continues to cook some once off the smoker, and I do not want bone dry pork. That's just ick.

I let my Nephhews Pumpkin BBQ sauce loin sit there for 20 minutes or so with some aluminum foil also called tin foil in the South loose over the loin. That let the flavors meld and also gave all my peeps time to get back home. We run on a crazy time schedule around here.



This Nephews BBQ Pumpkin sauce pork loin was a home run. The combo of sweet and heat and with a mild loin and flavorful bacon just was spot on. The barbecue smoked loin was thumbs up all round. It was a little kicky (heat) for my mild son, but he just pulled off some of the bacon and sauce to cool his plate down. The medium and hot lovers were in hog heaven. Yeah. It was THAT good. That pumpkin barbecue sauce was amazing, and this recipe showcased it just right.

Smoked Pork Loin with Big Acres Rich & Mild BBQ Sauce

Last night I slow smoked a half pork loin on the Weber Kettle. I find that it works out for a small family meal to do them in halves, since a whole pork loin is a lot of meat.

How To Smoke Pork Loin Offset on a Charcoal Kettle Grill

You can, of course, use a smoker for a pork loin, but you can also go with an offset on a kettle grill like I did last night.

I got the coals going in a chimney starter and then put them over to one side of the grill. Then, the pork loin went over to the cool side without coals. That keeps it from cooking too fast on the outside and not being done in the middle.

In this case, I had both top and bottom vents open full. If the outside starts to look like it is grilling too fast (getting dark) just close the vents back a bit.

With many foods, I can eyeball and tell the done-ness, but pork loin can be a little hard to tell, so I use a pocket Taylor thermometer. I pull mine at about 160 degrees which is pretty well done - maybe a tad of pink in the center. My boys prefer pork well done, so I cook that more done than I would do beef.

My grilling time on this small loin (around 2.5 lbs) was 1 hour 45 minutes. It was warm outside but did rain a bit. So, times can vary a bit.



Saucing a Pork Loin

Pork is fine with a rub or marinade before grilling or with sauce the last 15 to 20 minutes (or a combo). When it gets about 140 degrees or so, I put on the sauce. If it's a tomato based sauce and goes on early, then it burns. If you put it on right when you hit temperature, then it's kind of runny. So, watch and try to get the barbecue sauce on the loin with time for it to set nice.

I did shift the loin back over the coals and they were burning pretty low by the time I got to the bbq saucing stage.



Big Acres Rich & Mild BBQ

We used Melanie's Big Acres Rich & Mild on our pork loin. She has a collection of absolutely fabulous barbecue sauces. Rich & Mild is my younger son's favorite, because he can't take a lot of heat. But, he still likes robust flavor. Melanie's gourmet sauces have a lot more punch than off-the-shelf barbecue sauces.

Bacon Weave Pork Loin on Electric Patio Bistro by Char-Broil

My plans tonight were to smoke a half pork loin wrapped in bacon. I cut pork loins in half when it's just me and the boys, and that works out fine.

Since the cat was not acting right, and I thought he better go see the vet, we did that first. The news was bad. They had to put down Sugar who has been with us 16 years. What a bummer.

I didn't feel much like smoking or eating for that matter, but we needed something for dinner, and the meat was all thawed out.

The Char-Broil electric Patio Bistro had been real easy to use yesterday, so I thought I'd do our loin on there and not have to bank charcoal or watch temperatures close. Good call. It was easy to do my little bacon wrapped pork loin, and I was thankful.



I did a bacon weave on the pork loin and then heated up the Char-Broil Bistro. Then I had a brain fart and unplugged it for some reason. So, you can make mistakes and still turn out good food. Stuff happens.

Anyway, we ended up eating late, since I waited 45 minutes to check my pork loin that was not grilling due to me pulling the plug. So, I turned it back on and went another 45 minutes and then checked every 10 minutes after that with a basic food thermometer until we hit right under 160 degrees F. You can go lower, but the boys don't much like pork loin to look pink, so I cook it more towards well.



I also sauced the grilled pork loin the last 20 minutes with Chef Matt Barbecue sauce which is one of my all timve favorite bbq sauces. I order that online, and it has to be PayPal for payment, but it's worth the effort for sure.



The electric grilled pork loin turned out really good and was real easy to do on the Patio Bistro by Char-Broil. I had some Baxter's wood chunks on the grates to give a little smoke flavor and with the bacon and barbecue sauce, this was a kicking loin.

Grilled Pork Loin with Jack Daniels Barbecue Sauce

Pork Loin on Weber Kettle Grill

Last night I decided to smoke a pork loin on our Weber Kettle. The kettle design and air vents work well for low and slow as well as traditional high heat grilling. We have some smokers too, but I know pork loin doesn't take a long times especially since I cut it in half and saved the other half for later.

First I rubbed the pork loin down with some Traeger dry rub for pork. They have some really great rubs. I have the variety sample pack, and when it arrived and I opened up the box, yum. These Traeger rubs are fresh and very wonderful smelling. They taste really super too. You can, of course, use any rub you like (Emeril is good from the grocery) or make your own. I just enjoy playing around with different brands and recipes on rubs and barbecue sauces.

Normally I grill by sight and touch, but it's kind of hard to tell on bigger cuts of meat. I finally did what I should have done long ago and got a grill thermometer. It's a Maverick Redi Chek Remote. It makes sense to use a thermometer, because you can't really tell about the center of a bigger piece of smoked meat.

My Maverick meat thermometer has two probes to check either two types of meat cooking (one in a steak and one in a piece of chicken etc), or (in my case) one on each end of the pork loin just out of curiosity. In additon to the two probes, the unit has a remote beeper. So, I just plugged in the Redi Check and went inside where it was cool and did other fun things like laundry.

There are auto setting for types of meat on the thermometer, but I used the manual setting and pressed in 140 degrees F. That's low for pork, but I wanted to be sure I didn't overcook the meat. I just wanted to check at 140F.

Around 40 minutes, the beeper went off. It is definately loud enough to hear. The two ends were about 8 degrees apart on temp. So, I respositioned the pork loin and brought it on up to 150 degrees F.

Really, you want it about 160 degrees F on pork to be on the safe side, but I knew I'd sauce it and put the lid on to smoke it down about 10 more minutes. Also, I'd rest the pork loin for a half hour. It continues to cook while wrapped in aluminum foil, so you go lower on the off-the-grill temp when letting the meat rest (which allows the flavors to meld).

Generally my pork loins run closer an hour to get up to temp, but since I had the thermometer probes in and the lid cracked a bit so as not to crimp them, the fire ran hotter than usual.

Note also in the top photo that the coals are offset. In other words, I had hot coals on one side and one side with no coals. The meat went over the side without coals - the cool side. The heat and smoke then circulate for slow cooking on bigger pieces of meat like the loin. You can do similar with a gas grill by having one side on and one side off and the meat on the side that's not lit. Then, grill low with the lid down.


Pork Loin off Grill and Ready to be Wrapped in Aluminum Foil to Rest

Once the pork loin was close, I lathered on some Jack Daniels Barbecue Sauce. This is a brand name from the grocery store. It's a thick tomato based sauce but darker than most with a little zip from the whiskey flavor.

Once the sauce was on the pork loin, I put the lid on the Weber and shut down the vents to cap the fire. There was plenty of heat to kind of bake on the sauce without burning it. If you put sauce on too early, then the outside of your meat burns. Sauce is always a last step. Mop or marinade (thinner products) can go on before, during, and after - but not barbecue sauce.

The guys loved the pork loin. They had some last week made by the Leonard brothers. My guys asked why I never made pork loin. Well, when they were little, I made one. My oldest thought it was a pig leg. Sigh. He doesn't get out to the farm often. Can you imagine the size of a pig with legs that big? Anyway, the boys were suspicious of that "leg," so I gave it a rest for a while. Glad they discovered that they do like pork loin. When it's not overcooked, it's like a good steak - very moist, juicy and full of flavor.