Smoking a Pork Tenderloin

[nathan]

Hey all!  Love your site!  First time poster here.  I've smoked ribs, pork shoulders, and a turkey breast before....but I picked up a new smoker tonight (a Master Forge Charcoal model) from Lowes.  And a bag of lump charcoal (on sale for $5 if anyone is interested). 

Anyways.....I got a whole chicken to roast and a 1.5 pound pork tenderloin.  I've got a brine going for the chicken to soak in overnight (cooking tomorrow).  I think I'm good on the chicken, but I unsure of how to go about the tenderloin.  I know it has little to no fat, so it drying out is a concern.  Should I let it get some good smokey flavor and then wrap it in foil until it finishes?  Or something else?

 

[nathan]

Hmm...I meant to say I was going to smoke the chicken, not roast it.

 

[mballi3011]

First off welcome Nathan to SMF. You'll like it here cause there are alot of really good folks that would just love to help you with anything to do with smoking. Now we like having new folks here to give a new prospective on some of the ways we do things around here. Now if you are really new then I would suggest that you sign up fir the 5-day E-course it free and it will give you the basics on smoking and a few recipes too. Here's a link to it:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/list/127

then you will have a method to your newly found madness and believe me it will be a madness. Then when you start smoking things you will have to learn how to post the pictures / Qview 

here. So here's a link to a tutorial on how to post your Qview so we can see what your doing.

 http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/82034/how-to-post-qview-to-smf

Now the next thing you have to do is run out and get something to smoke. Then just smoke it and if you have any questions just post  them here and we will answer all your questions that you might have. Oh yea there's no stupid questions we were all there in the beginning and we just really like to help others enjoy the fabulous smoked foods that we do. So again

Welcome to Your New Addiction  

Go GATORS    

 

[meateater]

Smoke till 140* wrap in foil with some liquid and take till 200* and pull it. Yup, smoked tenderloin and loins are awesome pulled.

 

[i is a moose]

For the tenderloin, I like to slowly raise their internal temps to 100 degrees in a 225 degree smoker, the let them rest for 30 minutes, and then sear on highly stoked coals to get a nice flavor. I'll putt it off the grill at 135, and let it rest for another 30 minutes, during this time carry-over will bring it to 140-145, then slice and serve with apple sauce.

Welcome aboard, and happy smoking!

 

[SmokinAl]

If you want to keep it from drying out, a good idea is to wrap it in bacon. They are done when the IT is 140-145, so if you do like Moose say's & take it off at 135 and let it rest the IT will rise another few degrees. Here's a photo of a bacon wrapped loin I did not too long ago. It's a stuffed loin, not a tenderloin, but the same principles apply.

 

[flash]

Tenderloin=Grill, Loin=smoker. A tenderloin being so small will benefit little from smoke because of limited time in smoker. Marinade them, roll them around on a hot grill, wrap and let rest. No more than 140º internal.