Bro, your fire was way too hot man, try using less charcoal, and have some unlite inside your fire box. You would give the smoke more time to penetrate the meat. Even though you are using an offset smoker, if you have high enough temperatures, it is still basically grilling. I mean 45 minutes to smoke a pork tenderloin. Hell I did 3 the other day and it took me almost 4 hours at 225.
Max, his temperatures and time for the tenderloin were perfect. His finished product was on point, moist, nice color on the outside and a nice warm pink center. Are you sure you cooked pork 'tenderloin' and not pork 'loin' for 4 hours at 225º? I have cooked enough BBQ over the years and there is no benefit to cooking BBQ at lower temperatures for a longer time other than time to drink more beer, which is perfectly fine with me! I have cooked BBQ on many different cookers in various temperatures and now I exclusively cook in the 275º-350º range. Temperatures in my opinion are irrelevant when 'BBQ'ing'. Sure, many people will disagree and swear that lower and slower is better and I will value their opinion, but will disagree.
Here are a few things I would try doing.
1. Start out by taking a half of a chimney and place that in the lower part of your fire box, and make a hole in the middle to use the minion method. This is a proven method and works if you want to cook in lower temperatures or for longer amounts of time.
2. Light about 20, to 30 briquets, until they are going hot.
3. as soon as those are going place them in the hole of the unlite briquets, this will cause them to burn slowly from the inside out, your fire should go for about 4 hours. Less or longer, depending on many variables. But true.
4. Place your grill grate above the fire, and place your pellets, or wood on top of the grate. If you need a smaller grate for the bottom of your fire box hit me up I think I have one that will fit in your set up.
5. If you use charcoal fluid, you will still taste it mildly, unless you fire has burned for a while, and very hot. You can achieve the same type of fire by using a teaspoon of canola, vegetable, or any other type of oil, and it is cheaper. Using the oil you will not get that orangey taste the charcoal fluid leaves. Totally agree! Get rid of the fluid period, dry paper works fine or Max's advice is perfect. But even better, ditch the chimney. Your torch is the best lighter source you have. I haven't used a chimney in years, I used my hose torch or a torch like yours. Make a pile of coals, hit 4-5 spots with the torch for 10 seconds each, 15 minutes later, I'm cooking.
6. I would really consider changing over to real wood, you said you were in Oregon. You should have a good selection of fruit, and nut trees in that part of the country. Apple, Plum, Pear, Cherry(fruit), Maple, Hazel, Chestnut(nut trees) All of those would give a great flavor to really any food. I, myself would lean more toward the fruit trees. I agree with Max here too, mainly because of the cooker you are using. The pellets will work in your cooker, but they burn too fast and are made more for gass grills/smokers or ceramic cookers, something with little oxygen. Take Max's advice and give some wood chunks a try, it will also give you a longer burn time as well as better flavor and a longer cleaner smoke.
7. Less smoke bro. when smoking you should only have a really light blue grey color smoke. Like in this picture.....
I agree if using 'wood'......even though the pellets are pressed wood, they are not made to 'burn' in that box, they are made more for smoldering in lower oxygen cookers as stated before. The amount of smoke you had was a lot, but I think okay because the pellets were simply burning up over the hot bed of coals. Whereas a chunk or small limb (not chips) will burn slowly and give you the nice sweet smoke flavor you want from wood as well as the nice clean burning 'blue' smoke.
Really other than the things I have talked about, you should be good. Remember Smoking is Low, and Slow, not Hot and Fast. The main thing I see is that you have to get better control over your heat, and time. You will notice once you get a little better heat control you will use less fuel too. You will also notice a better flavor, and a deeper smoke ring in your foods. I agree, about smoking with 'low and slow', but smoking and BBQ'ing are not the same. I know this is a slippery slope, but it all depends on what you want in the end. With pork shoulder, brisket, ribs, pork loin, etc., you can acheive good finishes smoking in the 200º-250º range and take twice as long. OR....you can bump the temps up in the 275º-350º and BBQ/Roast your meats with the same or better finished product. It's all a matter of opinion, like Ford vs. Chevy, both will get you to where you want to go. Smoke rings to me are a beautiful thing, but highly overrated and does nothing for the meat rather than appeal to the eyes.Just have to ask, is this your YouTube channel?
I really hope all this helps.
Max
