MorrisWesterik
New member
So, due to busy schedule I had to wait a few weeks since receiving and assembling my WSM 22", but Saturday was the day, at last: time to try it out!
Reports of rain and incoming snow were definitely not going to thwart my plans: at 10:00 I lit the Fire Up briquettes and poured hot water in the pan of the Weber, then set out to prepare the meat!
The st-Louis style pork ribs were ready to go: nicely trimmed and put Smokey Goodness Pig rub on them (I did not use a binder: I had thought about Worcestershire, but the rub stayed on just fine).
The Irish grass-fed beef ribs were quite a bit fatty: trimmed quite a bit, but later found that I could have removed a bit more there. Used a coarse grain mustard on both as a binder and rubbed one with Smokey Goodness' "Beefalicious" rub and the other with "Texas Beef Rub".
It was only at 11:30 with all the cold wind that the WSM got up to temperature (around 210) and I put on the meat for the start of some 6 hours of cooking!
The hardest part was not going to look every ten minutes: I did that wrong previously on my kettle and took it as a chance to exercise some patience. Despite rain, wind and later even some first snow, the WSM quietly continued to run at 100-115 C. A few times I put in a handful of soaked apple wood chips (my ordered chunks did not come in on time) and kept an eye on the coals, but halfway through I finally got to look and luckily it looked good:
I wrapped the pork ribs in foil to let them go for another 2 hours with honey and butter. The beef ribs were doing fine and their internal temp was climbing steady enough, so I decided to leave them on as they were. The WSM stood up well against the cold weather, but I did go through a whole bag of briquettes very quickly. Luckily, I still had a bag of Weber lump charcoal lying around, so I was able to keep the heat stable between 210 and 250.
After those 2 hours I removed the foil from the ribs and smeared them with a mix of the gravy from the foil and some of my new BBQ sauce.
Around 17:30 the core temperature was where I wanted it and everything went off to rest.
Here are some more shots of the meat : I was surprised by the smoke rings!
All in all a very successful first time practicing with the WSM: the smoke flavor was very pronounced (maybe the rub, the briquettes or even the lump charcoal I added later...?) I hope to get that better with the ecobrasa coconut briquettes that are in the mail on their way to me). I wonder if there might not also have been some smoke salt or something in the rub, so next time I'll try just pepper and salt (I confess: I was over-enthusiastic about all the new rubs and suddenly forgot my intent to stick to a simple salt and pepper mix).
Anyway, we had a good meal and there is still plenty left: turns out it is excellent when eaten cold, too! I hope you enjoyed my write-up and I welcome tips and tricks!
Lessons learned:
- patience
- keep a poker handy
- WSM in cold weather eats charcoal/briquettes
- easy on the rub
- take sufficient time to let the meat rest
- starting the briquettes and getting the WSM up to temperature takes time
- I can be a bit bolder when trimming fat
Reports of rain and incoming snow were definitely not going to thwart my plans: at 10:00 I lit the Fire Up briquettes and poured hot water in the pan of the Weber, then set out to prepare the meat!
The st-Louis style pork ribs were ready to go: nicely trimmed and put Smokey Goodness Pig rub on them (I did not use a binder: I had thought about Worcestershire, but the rub stayed on just fine).
The Irish grass-fed beef ribs were quite a bit fatty: trimmed quite a bit, but later found that I could have removed a bit more there. Used a coarse grain mustard on both as a binder and rubbed one with Smokey Goodness' "Beefalicious" rub and the other with "Texas Beef Rub".
It was only at 11:30 with all the cold wind that the WSM got up to temperature (around 210) and I put on the meat for the start of some 6 hours of cooking!
The hardest part was not going to look every ten minutes: I did that wrong previously on my kettle and took it as a chance to exercise some patience. Despite rain, wind and later even some first snow, the WSM quietly continued to run at 100-115 C. A few times I put in a handful of soaked apple wood chips (my ordered chunks did not come in on time) and kept an eye on the coals, but halfway through I finally got to look and luckily it looked good:
I wrapped the pork ribs in foil to let them go for another 2 hours with honey and butter. The beef ribs were doing fine and their internal temp was climbing steady enough, so I decided to leave them on as they were. The WSM stood up well against the cold weather, but I did go through a whole bag of briquettes very quickly. Luckily, I still had a bag of Weber lump charcoal lying around, so I was able to keep the heat stable between 210 and 250.
After those 2 hours I removed the foil from the ribs and smeared them with a mix of the gravy from the foil and some of my new BBQ sauce.
Around 17:30 the core temperature was where I wanted it and everything went off to rest.
Here are some more shots of the meat : I was surprised by the smoke rings!
All in all a very successful first time practicing with the WSM: the smoke flavor was very pronounced (maybe the rub, the briquettes or even the lump charcoal I added later...?) I hope to get that better with the ecobrasa coconut briquettes that are in the mail on their way to me). I wonder if there might not also have been some smoke salt or something in the rub, so next time I'll try just pepper and salt (I confess: I was over-enthusiastic about all the new rubs and suddenly forgot my intent to stick to a simple salt and pepper mix).
Anyway, we had a good meal and there is still plenty left: turns out it is excellent when eaten cold, too! I hope you enjoyed my write-up and I welcome tips and tricks!
Lessons learned:
- patience
- keep a poker handy
- WSM in cold weather eats charcoal/briquettes
- easy on the rub
- take sufficient time to let the meat rest
- starting the briquettes and getting the WSM up to temperature takes time
- I can be a bit bolder when trimming fat
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