Q-Dat
Babbling Farker
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2008
- Location
- Pearl River LA
Ok been thinking about this for quite a while, but I finally put it together and gave it a whirl. I know that there are already commonly used and very effective indirect methods for the Kettle, but I wanted to come up with something that could extend burn times and also possibly increase the usable grate space. Although, this particular experiment sacrifices space, hopefully I'll be able to fix that in the future. This was mostly to test the concept.
I wanted to use the Kettle in the same manner that you would a WSM, but obviously there is a space issue. The charcoal grate is so close to the cooking grate that this is not an easy task. So I decided I was gonna need a shallow charcoal basket that would still hold enough to fuel a fairly long burn.
I used a stainless grilling wok that I had laying around. I'm thinking that the kettle is small enough to not need a ton of charcoal to maintain typical Q temps.
With that in place and taken care of I needed a way to shield the bottom and the sides of the meat from direct heat. What I came up with was a disposable steam pan with a rack that sits a couple inches from the bottom. This kept my ribs entirely exposed to the atmosphere of the kettle, but shielded where needed. I did have to make sure that the water in the pan didn't dry up otherwise the drippings would burn on the thin aluminum.
So how did it work? Well it worked great! I did a six hour cook on these ribs. That was about four hours at 225* and the last two at about 300* I like to turn the hea up on ribs later in the cook. Otherwise I think I could have made the basket of charcoal last a good 8-9 hours at 225*.
As for the ribs, these were some of the best that I have ever made! I just wish I could duplicate them in a comp!!! ;/
Thanks fer lookin!
I wanted to use the Kettle in the same manner that you would a WSM, but obviously there is a space issue. The charcoal grate is so close to the cooking grate that this is not an easy task. So I decided I was gonna need a shallow charcoal basket that would still hold enough to fuel a fairly long burn.
I used a stainless grilling wok that I had laying around. I'm thinking that the kettle is small enough to not need a ton of charcoal to maintain typical Q temps.
With that in place and taken care of I needed a way to shield the bottom and the sides of the meat from direct heat. What I came up with was a disposable steam pan with a rack that sits a couple inches from the bottom. This kept my ribs entirely exposed to the atmosphere of the kettle, but shielded where needed. I did have to make sure that the water in the pan didn't dry up otherwise the drippings would burn on the thin aluminum.
So how did it work? Well it worked great! I did a six hour cook on these ribs. That was about four hours at 225* and the last two at about 300* I like to turn the hea up on ribs later in the cook. Otherwise I think I could have made the basket of charcoal last a good 8-9 hours at 225*.
As for the ribs, these were some of the best that I have ever made! I just wish I could duplicate them in a comp!!! ;/
Thanks fer lookin!
