First time user, questions about snake method.


 
J

JoeMFL

New member
Hello guys, I started using my 2015 master touch this month and have done the snake method twice. but I really would like to perfect it.

Any formula to follow regarding how many briquettes and length of smoke @ 250 degrees? eg. 2x2 vs 2x1 vs 4x2 rows. and how long the rows should be?

I have noticed the master touch has the thermometer on the opposite side of the vents instead of 90 degrees to the side. Is this a flaw that I have to live with? because if I put the vents directly over the meats, then the thermometer is over the hot coals. which means it is reading too high? If the reading is at 250, that means the temp on the cool side is actually 200?

do you guys only use half the cooking grate to place meat and not the whole grate?

I cooked pork butt which came out awesome 2x2 rows of charcoal..

Then did 1 rack of spare, 1 rack of back and 1 rack of beef ribs all at once and that one did not turn out as awesome. I suspect I overloaded it with different cuts of meat and the temps werent high enough and the smoke was too much. I used 4.5 chunks of apple. 2x1 rows of charcoal. The spare ribs came out a little hammy and too smokey. The back and beef were decent. I foiled them after 5 hours.

Im open to all suggestions.
 
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Outside temperature and wind play heavily into how quickly the heat is wicked away from the steel, greatly affecting burn time. Because of this, there is no hard and fast rule that I know of.
 
Joe,

There are a lot of variables in play. A lot depends upon your particular grill (size/shape/volume/airflow), how much meat you are cooking (size/mass/grill loading), your vent controls, and as suggested above the weather. In general I use smaller snakes for shorter cooks at lower temps. Cooks that will be longer or at higher temps (or when the grill is loaded) use a wider/longer snake (or go with a Minion approach instead). Cooks that will be done when the ambient temps outside are cooler may require more charcoal (bigger snake). I like to place smoke wood along the snake to yield constant smoke throughout the cook. Placing the chunks farther apart will yield less smoke over time. I like to tune the smoke to the items I am cooking. I would use fewer chunks spaced farther apart for smoking chicken or fish but more chunks closer together for pork butt, beef, or brisket. Also some smoke woods are more subtle than others (think alder or apple vs. mesquite) so I might use more or less depending upon the smoke effect I am looking for. In general I try to arrange my meat placement so I am getting indirect heat for the most part. In my OTG and my Mini, I like to run the snake around the perimeter of the kettle and place the meat near the center so the fire essentially burns around the meat. The best advice I can give you is to keep experimenting. You will quickly get a feel for which charcoal approach will be best for your specific purposes. Besides it is fun and you get to eat your experiments. I hope this helps...

Regards,

John
 
Thanks for the response guys, I just did another cook recently one rack of ribs. did a 3 x 2 snake half way across. I needed it to be a set it and forget it type of cook that night so I did the top vents open and bottom half way open. anyways, the temps went too high and dried out/overcooked the ribs, the edges of each rib were inedible, the rest were delicious.

I wasn't home to tend to it. and in my experience either the snake becomes too short and the fire dies out in 3-4 hours, or it is too long and it lasts over the 5 hours I required for the ribs.

I am now really considering if I need one of these fan temp controllers. I feel like I have to constantly adjust the vents. Every half to full hour. too hot, too cool, never just right and held steady for hours. maybe I should have gotten a smokey mountain. sigh.
 
JoeMFL said:
Thanks for the response guys, I just did another cook recently one rack of ribs. did a 3 x 2 snake half way across. I needed it to be a set it and forget it type of cook that night so I did the top vents open and bottom half way open. anyways, the temps went too high and dried out/overcooked the ribs, the edges of each rib were inedible, the rest were delicious.

I wasn't home to tend to it. and in my experience either the snake becomes too short and the fire dies out in 3-4 hours, or it is too long and it lasts over the 5 hours I required for the ribs.

I am now really considering if I need one of these fan temp controllers. I feel like I have to constantly adjust the vents. Every half to full hour. too hot, too cool, never just right and held steady for hours. maybe I should have gotten a smokey mountain. sigh.
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I think you can make this method work. If you got too much heat from having the bottom vent at 50%, then try it again sometime with the vent closed to 25% or less. Keep in mind the ambient temperature and amount of sunlight radiating on the grill can both affect the internal temp a fair amount, so you may have to consider that when making these adjustments. Your latest results sound like they were very close, since you said the meat from the inner bones was delicious. Don't give up!
 
Chris Conro said:
I think you can make this method work. If you got too much heat from having the bottom vent at 50%, then try it again sometime with the vent closed to 25% or less. Keep in mind the ambient temperature and amount of sunlight radiating on the grill can both affect the internal temp a fair amount, so you may have to consider that when making these adjustments. Your latest results sound like they were very close, since you said the meat from the inner bones was delicious. Don't give up!
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Definitely wont be giving up. I love eating BBQ way too much for that.

I will be experimenting with snake method some more for sure. I really hope a Kettle can hold me over and I wont be forced to pickup a WSM. Most of what I am reading says the WSM hold steady temps way better than the kettle. Most of the posts were not using snake method on the kettles though.

Outside temp is pretty hot and humid. Florida summer right now. so , that probably means the smokes are gonna be hotter than usual as in my case.
 
Joe,

Don't give up. Try watching your grill for for the first hour or so to set your temp point. With the snake you can get very steady temp control for long periods (assuming other variables stay constant). Once you hit your desired temp it should hold pretty steady after that. When I am going for a long cook, I use the perimeter of the kettle and make a long curving snake along the wall. You can make your snake very long. With a long snake you cook until your desired doneness and then break the snake to stop the cooking. An auto temp controller is certainly an option but for me it kind of defeats the purpose and cheats the art of smoking. You could also invest in a wifi enabled temp monitor which would allow you to monitor both your grill temp and the internal temp of your meat from your smart phone even when you are away from the smoker.

Regards,

John
 
JoeMFL said:
Definitely wont be giving up. I love eating BBQ way too much for that.

I will be experimenting with snake method some more for sure. I really hope a Kettle can hold me over and I wont be forced to pickup a WSM. Most of what I am reading says the WSM hold steady temps way better than the kettle. Most of the posts were not using snake method on the kettles though.

Outside temp is pretty hot and humid. Florida summer right now. so , that probably means the smokes are gonna be hotter than usual as in my case.
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a WSM is a LOT easier. check craigslist. sometimes you can find great deals.
 
Heat level is predominately dictated by the amount of lit coals. Air flow / oxygen is kind of for fine tuning. If the heat from a 3x2 snake was way too high, try a 2x2 or even a 2x1 snake next time around. Heck, if you have some time one afternoon, bust out the bag of charcoal and do some experimenting. Try a 2x1 snake about 6-8 rows long with a head of 12 - 14 lit coals. Start out with all the vents wide open. See what temp you hit after 20 mins or so. Then, start closing off the lower vent and note the temps you hit. Then try with a 2x2 snake and maybe adjust the number of lit coals to start.
 
What I have noticed is temps are on the low side at first when only the head of the snake is burning, then a few hours in, temps spike up cause there are way more lit coals. The ones in the beginning don't burn out completely and will still produce heat along with the hot fresh briquettes and ultimately bringing the temps higher than what I want.

I think I would need to shut down the lower vents in the middle of the cook to put out the extra heat.

Also I am using a weber wireless thermometer, I am not sure how well these perform. I am now looking into mavericks.
 
JoeMFL said:
Thanks for the response guys, I just did another cook recently one rack of ribs. did a 3 x 2 snake half way across. I needed it to be a set it and forget it type of cook that night so I did the top vents open and bottom half way open. anyways, the temps went too high and dried out/overcooked the ribs, the edges of each rib were inedible, the rest were delicious.

I wasn't home to tend to it. and in my experience either the snake becomes too short and the fire dies out in 3-4 hours, or it is too long and it lasts over the 5 hours I required for the ribs.

I am now really considering if I need one of these fan temp controllers. I feel like I have to constantly adjust the vents. Every half to full hour. too hot, too cool, never just right and held steady for hours. maybe I should have gotten a smokey mountain. sigh.
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I do a 2x2 snake in the kettle with great results, keeps it below 300, vent positions depends on weather conditions. I did add an additional row of charcoal to the snake on one cook, so a 2x2x1 and it ran rather hot. So back to the 2x2, I find I can set it and forget with this setup
 
JoeMFL said:
What I have noticed is temps are on the low side at first when only the head of the snake is burning, then a few hours in, temps spike up cause there are way more lit coals. The ones in the beginning don't burn out completely and will still produce heat along with the hot fresh briquettes and ultimately bringing the temps higher than what I want.

I think I would need to shut down the lower vents in the middle of the cook to put out the extra heat.

Also I am using a weber wireless thermometer, I am not sure how well these perform. I am now looking into mavericks.
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"way more lit coals" shouldn't be a problem if you drop down to a 2x2 or 2x1. I just did 3 racks of babybacks using a 2x2 and did 2 sirloin tip roasts last night using a 2x1. The 2x2 hung constant around 240 degrees and the 2x1 stayed around the 200 mark. There was some small fluctuation, but only about 10 degrees or so. With a 3x2 snake you have 5 coals per row. If 4 rows are burning, that's 20 coals. With a 2x1 you have 3 coals per row. 4 rows would be 12 coals, about 40% less.
 
Gonna start up a 2x2 cook today for a rack of st louis style spare ribs. 4 small chunks of hickory. Vents going to be very slightly cracked open and with a pan of water underneath the ribs. Here is what the snake looks like, wish me luck.
xnP7c2T.jpg
 
Good luck Joe. BTW, using a water pan might lead to some temp swings at the beginning of the cook while the water is heating up. Filling the pan with hot water will alleviate that.



John Sp said:
Looks good Joe - you might make it half again as long IMO. Good luck on your spares!

Regards,

John
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Yep yep. Always best to build it longer as you can always move the unlit coals away from the snake at the end of the cook.
 
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Everything went pretty well. I made it snake exactly half way long with 2x2 layout. The temps stayed right around 230F all cook long. A little spike up to 255 for about 30 minutes.

In another thread I was told that the one touch kettles should have the lower vents barely cracked open. This was the main difference I made and made things more steady. I think it spiked up to 255 only because I opened the lid to tend to the meat and got the coals running hotter.

All of this was measured on a weber style wireless thermometer and I have not tested it in boiling water yet.


No pics of the ribs, sorry... Wife and I scarfed it down too fast lol

Now that I am on the right path as far as the kettle setup goes, I need to work on recipe. I am using meathead memphis dust and cooked for about 5.5 hours total and foiled it at around 4hours. I am not sure how people are getting that black bark everyone raves about. My park is dark and reddish.

Mine looks more like the one on the right or little darker. Do I need to just smoke it longer? Internal temp was at about 195 so I stopped the cook thinking it is done.
charcoal_vs_gas3.jpg



And another question was, with snake method how can I increase space for more racks? I can maybe squeeze 2 racks flat on there. Should I get one of those stacking grill grates? I don't know if I like the idea of rib racks. I have one that I use in the oven and the ribs are always touching each other.
 
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JoeMFL said:
Mine looks more like the one on the right or little darker. Do I need to just smoke it longer? Internal temp was at about 195 so I stopped the cook thinking it is done.
charcoal_vs_gas3.jpg



And another question was, with snake method how can I increase space for more racks? I can maybe squeeze 2 racks flat on there. Should I get one of those stacking grill grates? I don't know if I like the idea of rib racks. I have one that I use in the oven and the ribs are always touching each other.
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if you want it darker add more sugar.

I always use rib racks (always making a bunch) and yes the ribs touch eachother, but I haven't noticed any issue in the final product. I have two of these: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0037NZ7BY/tvwb-20 (though I know I paid less than that!)
 
I don't like to let the ribs touch each other when using racks as it affects the smoke absorption as well as the bark/color. I use a pair of racks that support the full length of the ribs, and provides good spacing. Will post pic when I get to a computer.
 
I just realized the master touch comes with a curved warming rack. I suppose I could use as a way to fit an extra rack of ribs.

Warming-Rack-2.jpg
 
2gt5jwk.jpg


It's two Char-Broil 4740 Potato-and-Rib Racks side by side.



047362847867lg.jpg



In this pic, the "head" of the snake is burning at roughly 12oclock and is burning counterclockwise. During the cook, I rotated either the grate or the rib racks around counterclock to match the burn and keep the endof the racks from being over direct heat. After about 2 hours, I then spun the racks 180 degrees to help even out the cooking. Ribs closest to the heat got moved to the back, and the ribs in the back moved to the front.
 
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