Recipes

Smoke-roasted Rotisserie Pork with Espresso Garlic Rub

This easy recipe will delight your guests. The rub is simple and imparts a wonderfully earthy, flavorful crust as the meat bastes itself in its own juices on the rotisserie. Wood smoke from the grill adds complexity and depth to the flavor. The results are both beautiful and delicious.

By Russ Faulk, Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet
Serves 7
Image of Smoke-roasted Rotisserie Pork with Espresso Garlic Rub
Ingredients
Directions

Ingredients

Espresso Garlic Rub

  • 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar
  • 3 tablespoons of kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon roasted garlic flakes
  • 1 teaspoon dried minced onion
  • 2 tablespoons ground espresso, we prefer to use Illy

Also Needed

  • 7-bone, center-cut pork loin roast, about 5 1/2 pounds (not Frenched)
  • Wood chips or pellets for smoking
Directions

Combine the ingredients for the Espresso Garlic Rub in a small bowl.

Trim the fat on the outside of the roast down to a thickness of 1/8 to 1/4 inch. Use a knife to lightly score a crosshatch pattern through the remaining layer of fat on the outside of the meat. This helps render the fat more quickly and allows the flavor from the rub and smoke to penetrate the meat.

Liberally apply rub to all sides of the pork, taking time to massage it into the crevices. Rest the roast at room temperature while you prepare the grill for rotisserie roasting at 400°F with wood smoke. For rotisserie roasting on gas grills, we recommend cooking with indirect heat from the primary burners rather than using an infrared rotisserie burner.

If you’re cooking on a Kalamazoo Hybrid Fire Grill, the setup should go as follows:

  1. Flip up the warming rack, making room for the rotisserie spit.
  2. Prepare 3 smoking envelopes with wood chips or pellets. Place 1 envelope in the Hybrid Fire Grilling Drawer above the main burner on the far left of the grill.
  3. Fire up the ignition burner on HIGH and the left main burner below on MEDIUM. Preheat the grill with the hood closed until the hood thermometer reads 400°F. When you mount the roast on the rotisserie spit, mount it so that the roast will be on the right side of the grill (away from the active main burner) and the larger end of the roast faces to the left (toward the active burner).
  4. Replace the smoking envelope every 30 minutes with a fresh one.

Mount the roast on the rotisserie spit, centering the mass of the meat on the axis of the spit as well as you can. Install the spit in the grill and roast the pork until the internal temperature reads 150°F, approximately 90 minutes cooking time. Remove the meat from the grill, leaving the rotisserie spit in the roast, and let it rest for 10 minutes. The temperature will continue to rise to the desired 160°F. Remove the spit and serve.


Check out the Kalamazoo Hybrid Fire Grill in action with this recipe from Project Smoke on PBS. He calls it "smoketisserie" roasting, and it is one of our favorite ways to use the rotisserie on our hybrid grills.