Foil pans for EX4


 
Mike Rubin

Mike Rubin

New member
Took delivery of an EX4 on Friday, seasoned it on Saturday, and overcooked some ribs in it today.

For the more experienced owners, I have a newbie question. Several of the Weber site recipes recommend using a foil pan atop the flavorizer bars and below the grates, sometimes suggesting it be filled with water. I had some foil roast pans here, so, before cooking, I tried fitting one into that space. It was a bit too tall but, more to the point, it wasn't wide enough to span the gap between the left and right bars. Especially when half-filled with water, it was unstable and keep slipping into the diffuser space, spilling water into the grill bottom.

I then figured that I would try the Weber-branded foil pan that Weber seems to recommend for this application, the 6416, so I ran out to Home Depot and bought a pack. When I got them home, I found they only were slightly wider than the far cheaper roasting pans I tried first. They, too, fall into the gap between the flavorizer bars.

At this point, I gave up and smoked the ribs with a 3-2-1 recipe and without the pan below the grates. (They were overcooked and a bit dry. That is on me as I didn't use a probe and instead relied religiously just on the temps and times in the recipe.)

Are any of you using foil pans between the flavorizer bars as the Weber recipes suggest and, if so, what kind are you using? I haven't found any on the internet that are both shallow enough to fit between grate and flavorizer and wide enough to span the diffuser gap, so I welcome your suggestions.
 
I've turned the flavor bars upside down to fit a tray between the flavor bars and cooking grate. Or you can simply press down on the grate, crushing the tray to fit. I don't advise water, but I have been know to toss in sliced apple or onion or both for aromatics
 
ChuckO said:
I've turned the flavor bars upside down to fit a tray between the flavor bars and cooking grate. Or you can simply press down on the grate, crushing the tray to fit. I don't advise water, but I have been know to toss in sliced apple or onion or both for aromatics
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Thank you for this. Where did you find a pan long enough to span between the flavorizer bars on the left and the right? The ones I tried, including Weber's, fall into the gap.
 
Mike Rubin said:
Thank you for this. Where did you find a pan long enough to span between the flavorizer bars on the left and the right? The ones I tried, including Weber's, fall into the gap.
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I don't try to cover the entire distance, I just get a tray that's equal to or bigger than what I'm cooking. In the case of ribs, it's pretty hard to find a tray that works for ribs, so I use the wide aluminum foil, and I pinch up the edges so that it doesn't find a low spot for the dripping to find their way to the bottom of the BBQ. Which is another thing, I foil the bottom of my EX6 because no matter how hard you try, dripping are going to find their way to the bottom of the BBQ. It's easier to pull up and toss foil, than scrub the bottom of the grill (imho)
 
ChuckO said:
I don't try to cover the entire distance, I just get a tray that's equal to or bigger than what I'm cooking. In the case of ribs, it's pretty hard to find a tray that works for ribs, so I use the wide aluminum foil, and I pinch up the edges so that it doesn't find a low spot for the dripping to find their way to the bottom of the BBQ. Which is another thing, I foil the bottom of my EX6 because no matter how hard you try, dripping are going to find their way to the bottom of the BBQ. It's easier to pull up and toss foil, than scrub the bottom of the grill (imho)
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Thanks, Chuck. That's useful information. Never occurred to me just to use foil off of the roll!

I thought that Weber recommends against foil in the bottom because it impedes the flow of ashes and grease into the drawer below. Obviously, you are having good luck with that, so it is a good experiment for me to try.
 
Congrats on your new EX4. I now cook almost exclusively on the top cooking grate. That simplifies the problem as you can set your pans on the lower cooking grate. My EX6 runs a little warmer on the top grate and some folks say you get more smoke up there. I don't know if you do or not but, at my age, it simplifies a lot of things. I bought a custom 14" deep top cooking grate to give me lots of room up there. I did get some 1.5" deep foil pans when I was still cooking on the bottom grate and they fit on the flavorizer bars but I don't put water in those. Another solution is to use a rimmed cookie sheet on the flavorizer bars. That's big enough for a rack of ribs and spans the flavorizer bars with room to spare. You don't need a probe in ribs. I start probing them with my Thermapen when they show about 1/4" pullback on the bones and pull when the probe slides in easily.
 
Lew Newby said:
Congrats on your new EX4. I now cook almost exclusively on the top cooking grate. That simplifies the problem as you can set your pans on the lower cooking grate. My EX6 runs a little warmer on the top grate and some folks say you get more smoke up there. I don't know if you do or not but, at my age, it simplifies a lot of things. I bought a custom 14" deep top cooking grate to give me lots of room up there. I did get some 1.5" deep foil pans when I was still cooking on the bottom grate and they fit on the flavorizer bars but I don't put water in those. Another solution is to use a rimmed cookie sheet on the flavorizer bars. That's big enough for a rack of ribs and spans the flavorizer bars with room to spare. You don't need a probe in ribs. I start probing them with my Thermapen when they show about 1/4" pullback on the bones and pull when the probe slides in easily.
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Thanks, Lew. I can see how using the top rack would have made this a lot easier. I didn't even consider it because the lower grates offer more real estate for two racks of ribs, but this might be the best solution.
 
Mike Rubin said:
Thanks, Chuck. That's useful information. Never occurred to me just to use foil off of the roll!

I thought that Weber recommends against foil in the bottom because it impedes the flow of ashes and grease into the drawer below. Obviously, you are having good luck with that, so it is a good experiment for me to try.
Click to expand...
If you lay the foil out carefully, you'll be ok. Truth be known, the drain rail doesn't really work all that well because the ash blows out, gets in the grease and pretty much just makes muck. A buddy of mine has a Trager and he wasn't all that careful about keeping the bottom grease free, and when he opened it wooshed like as if there was propane in it. Another time we were sitting outside and all of a sudden the lid blows open. Crazy how grease can become so volatile
 
ChuckO said:
If you lay the foil out carefully, you'll be ok. Truth be known, the drain rail doesn't really work all that well because the ash blows out, gets in the grease and pretty much just makes muck. A buddy of mine has a Trager and he wasn't all that careful about keeping the bottom grease free, and when he opened it wooshed like as if there was propane in it. Another time we were sitting outside and all of a sudden the lid blows open. Crazy how grease can become so volatile
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Failure to fight grease successfully is one of the reasons why I haven't gotten that deep into grilling and smoking in the past. I was seduced by Weber's "ease of cleanup" claims but I still knew I would be obligated to do some cleanup.

The interesting thing to me that is that the Weber app's program for ribs includes the pan filled with water. The water suggests to me that the steam is part of the recipe, not simply a grease trap. My original plan was, for the first time I used the grill, just to try to do what Weber suggests as the default.

Still, I can see a need for a grease catch under the grates or between top and bottom grates. I saw a pic of a grill with a baking sheet across the flavorizer bars. That is a pretty easy, dishwasher-enabled way to minimize the grease damage.
 
You should stick with your plan, and then modify your methods as you see fit in future cooks. I was never a fan of water in the BBQ or Smoker. Many people are, and they have kicked out some great eats. As they say....Whatever floats your boat
 
I sometimes use foil pans between the flavorizer bars and grates; depending on what I'm making and the pit temp I can get undesirable results otherwise. Case in point: bottom of ribs can get too crispy, or if the meat is near the center at the heat shield thingy the same thing can happen.

I like the recommendations of the other guys above but I previously bought a couple of the Weber kits for my EX6 and some extra pans:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BSQLVTL/?tag=tvwb-20
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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WEMG74/?tag=tvwb-20
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I buy my foil pans from Costco, get 30 half size for less than $10. I think the full size ones come in a 15 pack for about the same price.
 
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