8 July, 2025
Pork Loin on a Pellet Grill
Continuing my run of trying inexpensive meat on my pellet grill, I was well overdue to try my first pork loin. My trepidation is the same as what everyone probably has. It is a very lean meat, which does not lend itself well to a slow cooked barbecue. However this was so very tasty and moist. Biggest compliment ok’ing tip is to not let the temperature get too high. Safe cooking temp for this is 145°. I had to go slow for a while to extend the time because it can be a fast cook. These two 4.5 lb loins took three hours overall.
I made two different rubs since this was my first time. Some of my family liked the brown sugar based rub and some of us liked the herb rub.
Ingredients (credit ChatGpT)
🌿 Herb & Garlic Radiance Rub
A fresh, savory rub that enhances the natural pork flavor with aromatic herbs and zesty garlic.
Ingredients:
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp cracked black pepper
- 1 tsp dried rosemary (crushed)
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp crushed fennel seeds (optional but excellent)
- 1 Tbsp olive oil (to make it a paste)
Directions:
Mix all dry ingredients. Add olive oil to form a paste. Rub generously over the entire pork loin. Let rest at room temp for 30–60 mins before smoking.
🔥 Sweet & Smoky Spice Rub
A bold, slightly sweet rub with a kick of heat and deep BBQ flavor.
Ingredients:
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp cayenne pepper (adjust to heat preference)
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 Tbsp olive oil or yellow mustard (binder)
Directions:
Mix dry ingredients. Rub meat with a thin layer of olive oil or mustard, then coat thoroughly with the spice rub. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes (or overnight in fridge for max flavor)
In this first cook I had everything in the sweet and smoky rub recipe, but I did not have fennel seeds for the garlic and herb rub. I swapped cumin for fennel, and that was a great replacement. It also took more liquid for the binder, but that might be just my comfort level wanting to have everything be wet. I left these pork loin in my fridge for a good 6 hours before starting to cook.
Directions
Start the temp anywhere between 180 and 225°. You decide based on the amount of time you have to cook. In this first try, I started at 210, checked after two hours and was surprised to see both around 110°. I lowered it to 180 so that it would give me at least the third hour before it was ready to go. I am high altitude and these were not very thick pork loins. Again they were 4 1/2 pounds each roughly.
Cook until 135 to 140° depending on your comfort level with how much it will raise after the cook. I pulled mine at 140. I seared afterwards on a hot grill. My primary reason was because the herb crusted pork loin did not look that great as the herbs were not brown. Very pleased with the results for the taste, but it did not come out how I had hoped my first go out this would be Internet ready.
Also please forgive the poor photo. I meant to take a picture after I cut it up and it looked so good. This is right after taking it off of the grill, which caused a little white spurts which is some of the meat protein seeping out. Next round I’ll slice it up and have that be the primary photo. I want to keep this original photo to remind people might not look the best sometimes or as great as you think it should, but I can still be real tasty!!
There’s a lot of sauces you can finish with and there is a whole lot of other rubs you could try. I’m going to do a steady 220 or 225 next time, and probably with a bigger loin.
The amazing thing is this was enough meat for 10 people to eat at a total cost under $20.