I’m not a chef by any means, but I do love good food. Actually cooking isn’t really even a hobby of mine, but that may change after eating this pork loin from my new Pit Barrel Cooker. Our friends have one of these cookers, and after spending Labor Day weekend eating from theirs I put a cooker of my own on my wish list. At Christmas I had one and now two days into the new year I’ve cooked on it several times already. It’s so very simple.
The Pit Barrel Cooker
The cooker itself is pretty basic. It consists of a 30 gallon drum sitting on a small stand to keep the bottom of the barrel off the ground. There is a lid with a handle, and two handles on the barrel. The handles and the feet for the stand are actually horseshoes. Four holes in the top of the barrel support two pieces of metal rod where meat will hang from in the barrel. A removable basket for charcoal sits at the bottom. A grill grate and a tool for handling the meat hooks is included in the kit. It takes almost no time to assemble after opening the box. A small adjustable hole near the bottom of the barrel controls air flow based on elevation. Instructions come with the cooker and Pit Barrel Cooker has a good YouTube channel showing the basics of getting started along with instructions for a few different meats.
Starting the cooker is easy. Just pull out the charcoal basket, fill it with charcoal (Kingsford is recommend), put on a liberal amount of lighter fluid, put it back in the barrel, and light. Then let the barrel stand with the lid off until the charcoal is white hot. This should take about twenty minutes. Easy!
Prepping the Pork
I didn’t do a whole lot here. I laid the pork out in a dish and tenderized both sides with our OXO tenderizer. I bought this tenderizer as a gift for my wife after our neighbor showed us how much he liked his. I took the seasoning that came with the cooker and covered both sides of the pork after tenderizing. That’s all I did for prep.
Cooking
Cooking on this thing is so easy. Basically just hang the meat and wait. I put a digital thermometer in the pork so I can keep an eye on temperature. You are supposed to close the lid on the Pit Barrel Cooker, but so far I’m finding my charcoal cools down if I do that. For now I’m leaving the lid cracked open just a small amount, and that seems to keep the coals white hot. Not much of an opening though. Maybe just a quarter inch by sliding the lid to one side.
Here you can see the pork hanging from a rod with the cable for the thermometer fished through one of the rod holes. I just set the display on the window sill so I can I see it from inside the house because it is winter and it was really cold outside. Also notice the charcoal basket, vent hole, and tabs where the grill grate can sit. This 4lb pork loin only spent an hour in the cooker to hit 150°F before I took it out and wrapped it in foil. Oddly enough I did this so we could go out to eat with friends. We snacked on the pork later as we rang in the new year.
The Finished Product
This smelled great and I could tell it was very tender and juicy as I pulled it from the cooker. Even though the bottom end of the meat hangs much closer to the coals the meat is cooked perfectly even throughout.
I got a little bit of a smoke ring on the pork loin, and the outside was a little crispy and full of flavor just how I like! So good and so tender too. I was very pleased with my results!
All cut up and ready to eat! More of this will be on tap in the future, but there are quite a few other things I want to try. Brisket, prime rib, chicken, fish………….the list goes on.
What did you think of my Pit Barrel Cooker pork loin? Do you have some tips or a special recipe of your own? Drop a comment and share the great food!
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Looks yummy. I can almost smell it from here (in California). I had never heard of a barrel cooker before. I am more familiar with the Weber kettle-style cooker.
Make sure your lower vent is open to the proper width! Make sure you put both rebar rods in. If you actually light the charcoal according to directions, you close the lid completely. You only raise it to crisp skin and all. Then dont touch unless checking mear temp.
how long was your total cook? and what final temp did you bring it to? Thanks and I love my PBC too!
Just over an hour. I think that’s kinda fast, but so far I’m having to crack the lid slightly to keep the coals hot. If I close the lid they cool quickly. I have the hole at the bottom opened properly for my location.
It was fast because you have the lid open. Low and slow is the way to go. So close the lid, per the instructions.