We love our Weber – an early model of the Performa. A while back we had this fancy indirect heating gas grill – but it just didn’t provide much flavor for BBQing so we gave it away and bought the Weber over 10 years ago. It’s been our regular fire ever since – IMHO nothing beats a hot charcoal fire for the best flavor.
On one of our morning walks last week, Chris Gulker started talking about his new Weber Performa BBQ and how he had cooked a pair of very tasty thick cut pork chops on it last weekend. Naturally, my ears perked up – pork chops are an old favorite but mostly pan fried with some sauerkraut, not BBQed.
Taking Chris’ excellent results to heart, we tried our own version on the Weber tonight. The result was superb – just great – and simple. I was cooking two thick cut chops – about 1.7 lbs of meat that we had picked up at a local butcher yesterday (priced at $5.99-$6.29 a pound in our neighborhood).
About 45 minutes before my intended cooking start time, I coated the chops with Penzey’s Galena Street Rub. This is a delightfully spicy rub that every Penzey’s fan seems to know about – we used it for the first time a few weeks back on our “ultra lazy” baby back ribs recipe.
I lit the charcoal with some newspapers in a chimney – we’ve been using a new Trader Joe’s hardwood charcoal that is a high heat version and very flavorful. After about 20 minutes in the chimney, it was ready to spead across half of the bottom of our Weber. I let it sit for another 10-15 minutes – and it gets very hot – almost full scale (>550 degrees) on the Performa’s built-in thermometer. Then, it’s time to sear the chops.
I seared them about 2 minutes on each side directly over the hottest part of the fire. After that, I moved them over to the indirect heat side of the Weber and cooked them for another 6 minutes without turning. By that time, the internal temperature was about 135 degrees. I removed them from the fire, covered them with foil and let them sit another 6-8 minutes during which the internal temperature continued to rise to over 145 degrees. At that point, they were ready to serve.
We cooked some sauerkraut with bacon and BBQ sauce in a skillet on the stove and served that with the chops along with some more of that tasty BBQ sauce. What a treat! – a very nice and relatively low cost Sunday BBQ. Served with a little summer rose wine, it was just delicious!
Scott's Perfect Charcoal BBQ Thick Cut Pork Chops
Perfect grilled thick-cut pork chops on the Weber BBQ.
Credit: scottskitchen.com
Ingredients
- Thick cut bone-in pork chops (two to four chops)
- salt
- pepper
- Penzey’s Galena Street Rub
Directions
- In a medium bowl, toss together tomatoes, garlic, basil, mint, salt and black pepper.
- Cook and drain pasta.
- Mix together.
Scott's Kitchen 
We made these pork chops again tonight – delicious! Today we used a pair of boneless Niman Ranch pork chops from our local Trader Joes ($6,99/lb). Again, 2 mins each side over high heat and then 6 mins of indirect heat. 6 minutes under the foil and they were ready to eat. I’m convinced that the early application of Penzey’s Galena Street Rub is part of the magic – the flavor the rub adds is just delicious.