How To Smoke Five Pounds Of Grocery Store Pork Chops

When I was a kid growing up in the Cumberland Highlands of rural Appalachia, it was common practice to walk out behind my grandparents farmhouse to grab a slab of cured hog meat out of the smokehouse.

Grandpa Big Jim Sullivan was famous for raising Duroc hogs with great care til they were heavy enough for slaughter. He had a connection at a local bakery and regularly received pickup trucks loaded down with stale honey buns and Dolly Madison snack cakes. That’s a good way to fatten a pig.

Mid to late November was hog killing time.

That was when the first frost came. As the temperature dropped, it was finally safe to butcher the animals and pack them in salt to carry the family through the winter.

Nowadays I live in New Orleans, there are no hogs to kill and Big Jim is in a hillside cemetery in Knox County, Kentucky. More’s the pity.

When a local supermarket had a good sale on pork chops last weekend I made plans to fire up the Weber smoker and put up some meat for enchiladas, jambalaya, barbecue pork chop po boys and what have you.

This is how I did it.

How To Smoke Five Pounds Of Grocery Store Pork Chops

Buy the best pork chops you can lay your hands on. The days when I routinely drove to far-flung hog farms to buy grass-fed, heritage pork are largely behind me but if you have a source by all means use it.

Step one

  • Build a nice fire in your smoker.
  • Take 24 Kingsford charcoal briquettes, put them in a chimney smoker and set them ablaze.
  • 10 minutes later, when they are embers, turn them out into the bottom of the smoker and smother the coals with a good American hardwood. Today I used hickory.
  • Use what you can lay your hands on: pecan, oak, etc.
  • Place the raw pork chops on the grill.
  • Season heavily.
  • I use a Scrumptious Chef blend of granulated garlic, black pepper, cayenne pepper and kosher salt. If you don’t feel like making your own blend, go with a grocery store brand you trust. Paul Prudhomme makes a good one and is widely available.
  • I’ve been running smokers since the 80s and it’s second nature for me. I open up all the vents as wide as they will go to really put the smoke on the meat.
  • Today I set a timer for 90 minutes to remind me to check on the chops. I reckon they’ll be done but if they’re not I’ll cook them til they are.
  • Most of the readers on this site have been with me for coming up on 20 years. Y’all are seasoned cooks by now and know your way around a kitchen whether it’s inside or outdoors. If you tackle this project please report back.