Cooking on Charcoal Grate?

[Mike Purnell]

Has anyone had any experience cooking on the charcoal grate?

I cooked a beer can chicken the other night on the 22.5" OTG and one chicken could barely fit under the lid using the standard cooking grate. I was thinking maybe I could cook it on the charcoal grate beneath instead and removing the cooking grate, that way I would have plenty of clearance and I could probably fit 2 or 3 birds? Maybe use fire bricks to deflect the heat? Put the birds in a pan so nothing drips on the bottom of the grill?

Thoughts.......

Also, was thinking maybe I could cook 8 racks of ribs with 2 rib racks? 1 rib rack on the cooking grate with 4 racks and the same on the charcoal grate with fire bricks again acting as a heat wall?

 

[K Kruger]

Sure you could so that. You still want the smaller grate above the fuel - simply have it below where the standard grate usually is.

Me, I don't bother with beer cans. Never really saw the point. You can flavor-brine, brine, or marinate the chicken(s) and just put them on the standard grate, coals banked on each side. That's all I do. The can is too much fuss for no additional payoff, imo.

Welcome to the board!

 

[Phil Hartcher]

Hi Mike and welcome to the Forum.
A few years ago I wanted some info0rmation on Beer Can Chicken (BCC) and Konrad Haskins from this forum suggested that I try the brined chicken instead, He suggested that the chicken had better flavour and was more moist with a better finish. The end result was that I now only do brined chicken. The BCC is more about show and less about taste and moistness.
Try both ways and see for yourself.

Cheers

 

[Bryan S]

As both Kevin and Phil have said, do a brine or flavor brine for the birds, and just lay them down on the cooking grate. Way easier than fooling around with standing the birds up on cans. JMO

 

[Mike Purnell]

Never thought of that, I'll have to try/find a chicken/brine recipe. I brined a turkey for thanksgiving last year and it was great. This was before I picked up a charcoal grill so it was done on the Genesis.

How about cooking a bunch of ribs, some on the top grate and some below on the charcoal grate? That way I could cook double the amount of ribs! Has anyone tried this? Tips, tricks, thoughs?

 

[Gary Michael]

Having ribs on the charcoal grate would be to close to the coal, esp if your rub contains any sugar which it probably does. Get a rib rack, you can fit 5 racks on it.

 

[Gary Michael]

well thinking about it...you prob could put a rack or two down there, but..still opt for the rib rack

 

[Mike Purnell]

I have a couple of rib racks which help a lot. I was thinking of putting a couple of fire bricks beside the coals to act as a barrier so the ribs on the charcoal grate wouldn't get fried. Just thinking of maximizing the cooking space.

I've been considering a WSM but can't really afford one at the moment, so this is me thinking out loud on how to cook a ton of food on the OTG when I'm having lots of ppl over. Figured using the both levels would allow me to almost double the capacity.

 

[Gary Michael]

I cant remember exactly but someone sells another Tier to put on the current kettle grate...to have two grates, or im sure you can make one yourself. Great thing about BBQ and the cookers, a little hacking and playing around you can make your cooker cook to the max. your ideas seem fine, really the only way is to try them out and see. Worst case..it wont work and back to the drawing boards.

 

[Gary Michael]

I think it may have been on the Smokenator site, but yeah the grate was much smaller 18 or less.

 

[Dan Moore]

One other suggestion: brine the bird and then 'spatchcock' it. That consists of cutting out the backbone and removing the keel bone from the breast. It sounds like a lot of work but it takes only a couple of minutes. This flattens out the bird for more even cooking. You can also place a foiled brick atop the meat to get the grill marks.

Dan