Smoked Pork chops are a quick smoke on your Pit Boss and taste great
Pitt Boss Smoked Pork chops are perfect for when I don’t have all day to smoke a large cut of meat, but want delicious smoky pork. This recipe can be made in just 2 hours, maybe 2.5 hours with setup time. These smoked pork chops are also simple to prepare and hard to mess up. These pork chops can be eaten on their own, with sides, on a sandwich, or chopped up in put in other dishes like a meaty mac and cheese.
About my Pit Boss Brunswick
I use a Pit Boss Brunswick Platinum, which has been a total game changer for how I do smoking. Pellet grills in general are very low maintenance while smoking, and I think of my Pit Boss as a smoking oven. I just make sure the pellet tray is full, plug it in, set the temperature and let it run. My last offset smoker had to be adjusted constantly to keep temperature, and you had to have a degree of skill to keep your food from tasting like an ashtray. The Pit Boss on the other hand is easy enough for complete beginners to use and reliable enough for me to keep using.
It also doesn’t hurt that I got my Pit Boss Brunswick on an awesome clearance sale at Walmart last fall. Be sure to poke around your garden center around the end of the season to see what kind of deals they have. I had to check a couple times before they were on sale.
I overall recommend the Brunswick, but if you want a more detailed review, I found this YouTube review helpful.
Make Smoked Pork chops for dinner or meal prep for lunches
I made these pork chops for my lunches this week. They’re small enough to fit a bunch in the smoker, and they cook fast enough to contain in a Sunday afternoon. These pork chops also don’t need to rest very long and they don’t need any further processing or chopping after the smoke. Going from the smoker to packing tupperware was incredibly fast and easy.
Of course, you could also go straight from the smoker to a plate and feed a whole family dinner. To each their own!
How to increase the amount of smoke in your Pit Boss pellet grill
While I love my Pit Boss, I find it doesn’t produce nearly enough smoke on its own to provide a rich smoky flavor. Sure, there is an auger button that will push more pellets into the fire, but the whole point of a Pit Boss is to smoke without babysitting the grill.
My solution is to use a smoke tube. I’ve written about it in a few of my other smoked meat posts, and I continue to stand by it. The tube looks like a cheese grater that you fill with pellets and light on fire. Inside the smoker it smolders and adds smoke to the chamber.
Since starting to use a smoke tube, all of my Pit Boss meals come out with a nice smoke ring and rich smoky flavor.
Do smoke tubes affect how the Pit Boss works?
In short, no, there is no effect. The Pit boss will sense any increase in temperature and adjust its own heating element accordingly. In truth, the smoke tube doesn’t create a ton of heat since it is only smoldering a small number of pellets at a time.
How to avoid a dried out pork chop
Pork chops are one of those meats that will dry out quickly if you’re not careful. Some recipes soak their pork overnight to increase its moisture content to survive the smoke. I prefer to simply start with well defrosted meat and keep an eye on the pork chop’s internal temperature. If your pork chop is partially frozen, it will take longer for the center to reach temperature and the outside will start to dry out.
Since you only need to get the pork to around 150, it won’t spend much time stalling, which is when you might risk drying the meat out. Stalling refers to a behavior seen in smoked meats between 145F and 165F where the meat cools itself off as it evaporates liquid. The meat will spend a disproportionately long time trying to climb from 145 to 165F.
Should I smoke pork chops with the bone in or out?
You can smoke both bone in and boneless pork chops. I prefer smoking boneless pork chops because it’s easier and cheaper to buy a whole pork loin and slice them myself. Bone in pork chops will smoke fine. My only advice is when you set up your temperature probe, be sure the probe is not in contact with bone, as this will throw off the temperature readings. Bone conducts heat faster than muscle, and you’ll think the pork is done early.
What should I serve my Pit Boss Smoked Pork chops with?
Smoked pork chops go great with a number of BBQ sides, such as:
- Smoked Sauerkraut – I made this at the same time as the pork chops, and they worked together great!
- Potato Salad
- No Yogurt Naan
- Yellow Rice
Recipe for Pit Boss Smoked Pork Chops
Pit Boss Smoked Pork Chop
Equipment
- 1 Pit Boss Pellet Grill or other smoker
Ingredients
- 5 6oz pork chops
- 4 tsp lemon pepper seasoning
- 1 pinch table salt
- ¼ cup olive oil
Instructions
- Start by mixing the lemon pepper and salt together in a bowl, then rub down both sides of your pork chops in the spice mix. Then rub the pork chops with the olive oil
- Next, preheat your Pit Boss or other pellet smoker to 250F. If you’re using a smoke tube, start it now.
- Once preheated, lay out your pork chops and push a meat probe through the center of the meat. If the probe is too long, stick the far end into another pork chop.
- Smoke the pork chops until they reach 150F. It should take about 2 hours. Then serve and enjoy.