Foods & cuts · Pork

Pork loin joint

A lean roasting joint from the same muscle the chops come from — which means it has a chop's problem at a joint's scale, and hours in which to make it worse.

What it is

Form: Boneless joint
Typical weight: 1200–2500 g
Typical thickness: 80–120 mm
Cut: Not a cut of anything

Why it behaves as it does

The loin is the leanest large cut on a pig, and a joint of it spends far longer over heat than a chop does, so the thing that makes a chop dry has much more time to work. That is the argument for cooking it beside the fire rather than over it, and the argument for brining it, which is the one intervention that changes how much water it holds rather than how fast it loses it. Where the joint carries skin, the skin and the meat want opposite things — crackling needs a hard, dry, direct heat that the meat underneath does not — and no arrangement gives both at once without treating them as two jobs.

When is it done?

Food-safety endpoint

Food Standards Agency
The Food Standards Agency names pork alongside chicken and minced products as food that should not be served pink or rare, because bacteria can be present within the meat rather than only on its surface. A whole cut of pork is therefore not covered by the permission the same guidance gives to steaks.
The rule and its source
The same Food Standards Agency guidance names pork and chicken, with minced products, as foods that should not be served pink or rare — placing whole cuts of pork on the opposite side of the sentence from whole cuts of beef and lamb.
Well established
- Food Standards Agency — States this directly
  “other meats, like chicken and pork, as well as minced meat products such as burgers, kebabs and sausages should not be served pink or rare as bacteria can be in the meat”
  What it covers:
  Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales, as the document states.
  Pork is named, as a species, on the restricted side. This is the sentence that stops the red-meat permission being read as covering whole cuts generally: a pork loin is a whole cut and is excluded by name.
  Shape:
  Again no figure. The FSA's numerical endpoint — 70 °C for two minutes or an equivalent — is published in its business guidance and modelled separately; this sentence is a form rule and is recorded as one.
  About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-14
USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
In the United States, whole cuts of beef, pork, lamb and veal — steaks, chops and roasts — should reach 145 °F (63 °C), followed by a rest of at least three minutes before carving or eating.
- 63 °C (145 °F) — measured at the centre of the thickest part, away from bone and fat.
The rule and its source
In the United States, whole cuts of beef, pork, lamb and veal have a safe minimum internal temperature of 145 °F (63 °C), followed by a rest of at least three minutes.
Well established
- United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service — States this directly
  “Cook raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F ... allow meat to rest for at least three minutes”
  Form:
  Whole cuts only. Ground meats are covered by a separate, higher figure.
  The three-minute rest is part of the safety requirement, not only a quality step.
  How it was measured:
  As measured with a food thermometer before removing from the heat source.
  About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13

When it goes wrong

It came out dry: The meat came out dry — 4 distinguishable causes.

Afterwards

Cooling, keeping and reheating what is left is general guidance for barbecue leftovers. Neither UK authority publishes anything specific to pork loin joint, and BBQHQ does not invent a distinction they do not make.