Holy moly, this was no doubt one of the best pork loin roasts we’ve done this year! Why? Bacon…that’s why! What goes better with pork? Well, more pork of course!!!! This recipe isn’t overly complicated it just takes a bit of time to get everything ready. Read on and find out just how good this roast really was!
First you’ll have to trim the silver skin off your roast and prepare your brine. You’ll brine the roast over night (or at minimum 6-12 hours) in a simple solution that goes something like this:
1 litre of pure Apple juice
1/2 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of sea salt
a bundle of fresh thyme, sage and rosemary all wrapped up together
Dissolve the sugars and salt in the apple juice in a medium sized pot and then bring it to a simmer. Once it starts to gently bubble, remove it from the heat and add the herb bundle. Close the lid on the pot and let it cool down to room temperature. Once cooled, place the pork roast into a medium sized non-reactive bowl and pour the brine over the top. This should easily cover the entire roast. Pop it in the fridge over night (if possible.)
So once you’ve brined the roast, go ahead and prepare your herb rub by adding the following ingredients:
2 Tbsp Kosher salt
1 Tbsp freshly cracked black pepper
1 Tbsp of fresh thyme (finely chopped)
1 Tbsp of fresh rosemary (finely chopped)
1 Tbsp of fresh sage (finely chopped)
4 cloves of garlic, minced
Mix it all together and prep your roast. For that, simply rub some olive oil over the roast then pat the herb rub all over the top side of the roast. Now go set up your grill for direct heat (for now) as you need to sear the outside of the rack. Go ahead and get the grill to about 400F and carefully get some colour on it. Be gentle as you really don’t want the herb crust to fall off. Once you’ve got some nice colour (after about 10 minutes) remove the rack and get it back into the kitchen for the final…and most amazing step….the bacon!
Lay out enough rashers of bacon on a chopping block, slightly overlapping each other. Place your roast, meaty side down and then start wrapping the bacon around. I used toothpicks to temporarily hold everything in place before I trussed the roast with some butchers’ twine. Trussing it helps the roast cook evenly and it looks a little nicer when it’s all done. Lightly oil the top side of the roast (now covered in bacon) and sprinkle a bit of Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
Now, got back to your grill and set it up for indirect heat. For BGE owners, pop in the platesetter. I threw in a small handful of hickory chips as well just to help get some extra smokey flavour to adhere to the roast. Now, drop the temperature to about 280F and insert your trusty probe thermometer into the middle of roast. Place the roast onto a v-rack and over a drip pan containing about a cup of hot water. Drop the lid and don’t peek!
You’ll shoot for an internal temperature of 145F – that should take about 90-120 minutes. Remove the roast and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Sharpen your knife and cut the butcher’s twine first then cut the roast into individual chop portions. We served the pork with homemade cinnamon apple sauce and a purple cabbage and feta salad. Absolutely delicious and something I’ll do again and again!
Enjoy!
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