Today's cook was just to satisfy a craving... half a dozen HUGE racks of BB ribs. We had stopped at a highly-recommended BBQ joint last night halfway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, in anticipation of earth-shattering gastronomic adventures. It was very good, but not earth-shattering after all. They did do very nice ribs - untrimmed spares cooked dry. They were very tender and pulled off the bone with just the slightest tug, and very nicely rendered of fat. The chief cook and bottle washer said that they cooked them only 2 - 4 hours /infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif , but I neglected to ask him at what temp! (Dan's BBQ on old Route 66 in Davenport OK, in case anyone's in the area and would like some tasty ribs served buffet style.) They were good, but just not as good as ours. /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
I had bought a lot of BB's at Albertson's when they were on sale back around the 4th (Today's Cut brand, unpumped, and positively huge, but not my favorite brand...) We usually do ribs on the trailer offset with pecan logs, but it was just too bloody hot to baby-sit that thing today - 106 in the shade on the back porch here. Thus, the trusty WSM went into action in the shade.
I tried out my new charcoal saver today, and it worked great. Actually, it's nothing more than expanded metal from Home Depot, cut into a circle just a bit bigger than the circumference of the charcoal ring. I set the metal on the charcoal grate, the charcoal ring on top of the expanded metal, and VOILA - no more annoying dropping of charcoal down into the bottom of the cooker, and it doesn't block the ash droppings. If you read this, Robert, dear hubby of mine, thank you for cutting that out for me!
I also wanted a bit more capacity so that I could do all six slabs laying out flat, so I did the soup can thing on the bottom rack by setting 3 empty soup cans in a triangle on the bottom rack, placing 2 slabs of ribs on the bottom rack, then laying an old spare ECB rack on top of the soup cans, another 2 slabs on there, and then the final two slabs on the normal top rack. It worked great, and soup cans will become part of my regular arsenal. Hmmm... guess I should have cut the bottoms out of the cans too, for heat flow purposes. I'll do that next time. Anyway, it's a very easy and efficient way of getting a few more square inches out of the ECB.
I'm probably going to post this and THEN find that Chris already had something about soup cans and spare grates somewhere on the site, and that this is common knowledge amongst all WSM'ers. If so, then my apologies for duplicating the info. I just really like KISS solutions. /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
Keri C
Smokin on Tulsa Time
I had bought a lot of BB's at Albertson's when they were on sale back around the 4th (Today's Cut brand, unpumped, and positively huge, but not my favorite brand...) We usually do ribs on the trailer offset with pecan logs, but it was just too bloody hot to baby-sit that thing today - 106 in the shade on the back porch here. Thus, the trusty WSM went into action in the shade.
I tried out my new charcoal saver today, and it worked great. Actually, it's nothing more than expanded metal from Home Depot, cut into a circle just a bit bigger than the circumference of the charcoal ring. I set the metal on the charcoal grate, the charcoal ring on top of the expanded metal, and VOILA - no more annoying dropping of charcoal down into the bottom of the cooker, and it doesn't block the ash droppings. If you read this, Robert, dear hubby of mine, thank you for cutting that out for me!
I also wanted a bit more capacity so that I could do all six slabs laying out flat, so I did the soup can thing on the bottom rack by setting 3 empty soup cans in a triangle on the bottom rack, placing 2 slabs of ribs on the bottom rack, then laying an old spare ECB rack on top of the soup cans, another 2 slabs on there, and then the final two slabs on the normal top rack. It worked great, and soup cans will become part of my regular arsenal. Hmmm... guess I should have cut the bottoms out of the cans too, for heat flow purposes. I'll do that next time. Anyway, it's a very easy and efficient way of getting a few more square inches out of the ECB.
I'm probably going to post this and THEN find that Chris already had something about soup cans and spare grates somewhere on the site, and that this is common knowledge amongst all WSM'ers. If so, then my apologies for duplicating the info. I just really like KISS solutions. /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
Keri C
Smokin on Tulsa Time
