Smoked Pork Tenderloin

Last year, my brother-in-law, the younger, gave me a steel smoker box. Basically a steel box, with holes drilled into it, into which you place wood chips, place the lid on the body of the box and put it into your grill over the flame. I never got around to trying it out until today; the great procrastinator - that's me.  Yesterday, I picked up a nice looking pork tenderloin at Costco. A good layer of fat on the outside and I had hoped it would have a lot of fat inside. I took some Cherry wood chips, that I bought about a week or so ago, threw them into that smoker box, cut the roast in half, put half away, rubbed the other half of the meat down with salt, pepper and garlic powder, put it into the BBQ grill on the top warmer rack, turned the burner on the right side on low, turned the burner on the left side on low, put the smoker box with wet wood chips (I let em soak for about an hour before using them) on the grill over one of the lit burners and went inside. Half an hour later the wood was not even charred so, I moved that little wood chip filled smoker box right onto the burner and left it there.

Over the next 5 hours or so, I  probably had to refill the wood chip box about 6 to 8 times. I also basted the pork with a bottle of Franziskaner Hefe Weiss Bier. As it turned out, it was an excellent decision to baste the meat because it was a terribly lean cut of pork, no fat to be seen inside at all when I later cut it open. I hate dry pork, it needs to be wet to be good (by wet I mean fatty like corned beef or pastrami). When I took it off of the grill, I noted, for the first time, in all the time it was smoking, that it looked to have less juices flowing out of it than it did earlier. Luckily it had not dried too badly. it would have been much better had it been loaded with fat but my wife said it was not too dry. (She likes meat a lot leaner than do I.) In fact, my wife, who does not like most smoked meats, thought it was delicious too. It came out with a mild smoky flavor. I prefer it to have stronger smoked flavor but have to admit, even with a mild smoked flavor, I thought this was pretty good.

I suppose, that for a first attempt, it came out close to excellent even for a picky guy like me. (There is a nice chunk missing off the left end, the wife and I tasted it almost as soon as I brought it inside.) Next time though, I would place the meat closer to the smoker box, maybe right on the grill instead of on the warmer shelf, but still not right over the flames as it has to be in there for hours to absorb the smoke aroma. I will also try to get a fattier cut of meat. Other than that, about the only change I would make is to use hickory wood or mesquite next time, maybe a combination of one of those and cherry. The hickory and mesquite woods throw off a much stronger aroma when charring; heck even when not lit, they have much more of an aroma than does the cherry wood. I am not sure what kind of meat I will use next time. Maybe, I will use a nice chunk of beef or a chicken or even some more pork. I may try two things in the grill at once, it is big enough, that is for sure.

I can see me smoking a lot more things in the future; I always figured it would be a pain in the butt to smoke but it turns out that it really was pretty easy or I just got lucky the first time around. If I get into it enough, I will buy a smoker next year. It also seems like a good way to cook meat on the grill when you don't want to have to constantly watch over it, including during the winter. Sure, you still have to tend to it but certainly not as often as you would if you were grilling something, so you would not be out in the cold too long in the wintertime. Maybe go out once an hour to add more wood chips and to baste the meat and that is about it after you get it initially set up. Then just go out to take it off the grill when done. I think I am going to be cooking a lot more than I have been recently and that cooking is going to be smokin'! And there I was, thinking I had given up smoking just over 24 years ago.

All the best,
Glenn B