Pulled Pork Loin?

[jdbower]

Meat: ~7.5lb boneless pork loin

Brine: None

Rub: Dizzy Dust

Fuel: KKEC

Smoke: Jack Daniels smoke pellets

Method: Indirect, Main Grill

Rotisserie: No

Pit Temp: 220

Pull Temp: 195

Time: About 20 hours

Draft Control: Stoker

On Tuesday night I made a trip to Costco to pick up a few things, including a nice fatty bit-o-pig to help season my wok. Unfortunately while Costco isn't nearly as busy on a weekend night as compared to a weekday their fresh food stock is a bit lacking. They had no ground beef patties left nor did I see any pork butt so I settled on a pork loin as an experiment. See I've been craving some nice vinegar sauce and even if the pork loin came out too dry that would just let it soak up more sauce Besides, I have a long history of unsuccessfully trying to fail on a KK cook so cooking a lean piece of meat to 195 is a well within my expected behavior!

I trimmed the fat cap for the wok (and to make things that much tougher for Dennis' beauty to give me something edible), gave it a light coating of Dizzy Dust, and put the pork on around 10am at 220F:

While waiting I made some Carolina Red and Pulled Pork Finishing Sauce and let them sit out at room temperature to allow the flavors to mix. StokerLog's ETA was reading 7am through the afternoon, so just in case I used the "Keep Warm" function (which reduces the pit temp as the meat temp reaches the finish temp). Late in the evening a neighbor stopped by and I couldn't help but to show off - but leaving the lid open a bit too long increased the airflow and pushed up the finish time to 3am. When I got up at 6 (didn't bother to set a local "meat done" alarm) I pulled the loin and foil wrapped it for an hour or so.

So how can the cook be edible when I took a cut of meat that was way too lean, trimmed off the little fat there was, and left it in the cooker for an extra three hours? You'll have to ask Dennis!

(I couldn't resist a quick taste before snapping that pic!)

(the Carolina Red is on the left and the Finishing Sauce on the right)

The pork shredded very easily and, while a bit dry compared to the butts seen here, it was much more moist than I expected. I think it's actually pretty perfect if you want something that really soaks up the sauce which was my goal for the cook. I can't wait for lunch!

Yet another failure at trying to fail - I guess I'll just have to enjoy everything that comes off the KK no matter what I throw at it. Such is life, I suppose!

[jdbower]

Right and wrong

Well, I was right about not being able to wait for lunch But I'd like to change when I said "a bit dry" to "extremely flavorful with a firm texture and not greasy at all". In fact, I'll have to get a pork butt to do a real comparison, but I like the texture enough that I think I'll actually be using a pork loin in the future for most of my pulls. At $1.89/lb for the cut it's well worth experimenting with if you don't like greasy foods.