Testing the Memphis Pro.... Pork Loin and Cornbread

This is my first trial run on the new Memphis Pro.
Memphis Pro Wood Fired Grill
More Hearthland Products
Due to many interruptions this week, I didn't get to try the new grill until yesterday. The wait was torture! It's been sitting on the patio begging for me to fire it up! :)


Yesterday I shut my phone off, pushed all work aside, decided that if an emergency arose.... it would have to wait. Nothing was going to side track me from trying out this grill!

I decided to smoke a pork loin for the first Memphis Pro meal.


I butterflied the loin and gave it a quick overnight cure using Tenderquick and turbinado sugar..

I used 1 TBS of Tenderquick mixed with 1 tsp of turbinado sugar PER pound of meat. Sprinkled on both sides and wrapped in plastic wrap, then chilled overnight...

I made a slurry using 1 cup of beer and Harley's dry rub to spice up some sausage....





Mixed the beer/dry rub slurry with equal parts ground beef and ground pork....



Rinsed the cured pork loin well under cool water to remove any remaining Tenderquick/sugar cure..

Evenly spread the sausage mixture over the cured, butterflied loin....
then sprinkled with minced onions.


Rolled and tied the loin then sprinkled with cracked black pepper....

The cured loin and sausage contain salt so no additional salt is needed.

The Memphis Pro control panel is so easy to read and use...

From left to right.. the on /off button, below that is the pellet feed button.

Then arrows for raising or lowering the temperature...

A digital read-out of the temperature.

Next to the digital read-out is a button which selects either the temperature you set the grill to or you can choose to see the actual temperature inside the unit. I found this to be very handy.

The last button on the right lets you select "cook" or "smoke" mode.

I filled both sides of the hopper with pellets (per the instructions included).. Out of curiosity, I measured the pellets as I filled the hopper. Each side held 16 cups of pellets. I wanted to get an idea of how many pellets the Pro would use.

I did an initial burn off at 450 degrees F for 20 minutes. Also washed the grates with warm soapy water before cooking. (per instruction booklet)

Then set the cooker at 250F to smoke the pork loin. I used apple pellets for a mild smoke flavor..

ok... I didn't want to get the grill dirty so I used a drip pan. :)

I used a mixture of beer sprinkled with dry rub in the pan, placed the loin on the grate above.

I sat back with a cold drink and actually stared at the grill for about an hour. I could hear the little pellets feeding into the unit at regular intervals..

Realizing that the Pro could handle things without me... I kicked up the heat to 275F and wandered over to my little shop to play a few games of pool.

I checked the Memphis Pro every so often. The temperature remained steady...



I pulled the pork loin out at 165 degrees internal temp, covered and let it rest while baking the cornbread.

I raised the Pro's temperature to 375F and added the skillet of jalapeno cornbread.

The cornbread cooked for about 45 minutes....



Including the initial burnout of the grill, the Memphis Pro didn't use very many pellets during the 7 hours of use......( I will measure exactly how many cups of pellets it used)




I was very happy with the color of the jalapeno corn bread... I've smoked this in my drum and horizontal wood burner in the past and sometime have a problem obtaining a nice brown top.
The Memphis Pro handled it well. :)

The stuffed pork loin came out great. The cure and sausage made the loin moist and tasty.

The apple smoked, sausage stuffed pork loin, jalapeno cornbread, mustard greens and fruit...

I like the new Memphis Pro... It did everything I had hoped!

Being able to low smoke and bake in one unit will be so handy.... I can't wait to try grilling with it too.

After this first run, I'm very happy with it!

If you are interested in getting one... check out Big Poppa's site

Big Poppa Smokers He's very helpful and will be happy to set you up with one. :)

Update on pellet use...

I live in a rural area and do not have a huge selection of pellets available to me. I found 20lb bags of Traeger pellets at an Ace Hardware store for $16.99 per bag.

I measured the pellets as I filled the Memphis Pro. each hopper (2 hoppers) held 16 cups... for a total of 32 cups to fill the cooker.
Then I measured how many pellets were left in the 20lb bag....there were 24 cups left.
These were not level cups they were as close as I could get though.

So.. estimating that there were 56 cups total in a 20lb bag,... at $16.99 per bag, I came up with the pellets costing .3033928 cents per cup... .

I measured how many cups it took to fill the hoppers again after use... total used pellets came to 16 cups.

The 16 cups of pellets it took to cook came to $4.8542848...... So figure that the pellet cost
came to $4.85 or $4.86 (if you want to be on the high side).

Keep in mind....

This was for a 7 hour cook.
The highest I had the unit set was 450 degrees for the 20 minute burn off in the beginning.
Then I ran the cooker at 250 for about an hour... kicked it up to 275 until the pork loin was finished.
THEN kicked the cooker up to 375 to bake the corn bread..., which took about 45 minutes.

Based on the $4.86 figure.. the cost of pellets for this smoke came to .6942857 cents per hour.

or about 69 cents per hour.

I can live with that. :)

Another pellet update........

I should be able to get pellets at a better price just about cutting the cost in half. Sounds great to me. :)