Jumbo Joe help


 
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Dex from NJ

TVWBB Fan
Greetings, I feel dumb asking this, but I want to make sure I am using the grill properly.

I have a weber 22.5 smoker and propane genesis. I have no problems using them, but dont have much experience with a small charcoal grill.

What would make the food (the tomatoes) have a smokey taste? What would cause the food to have a lot of "char" that rubs off?

I used stubbs briquettes and a few pieces of lump that was left over.

Both the top and bottom vents were all the way open. I cooked mostly direct. I moved some of the food to indirect as it was close to 165 degrees.

I do notice some flare ups when I open the top to flip the food. Is there a way to avoid that? I am sure thats where some of the very charred parts of the chicken came from.

Pics attached..The tomatoes was an idea I got from another poster, but I only had small homegrown cherry and san marzano tomatoes.


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The coals look black under the grill. Were they grey and ashed over when you put the meat on? Other than that, parts of the chickens look over done from flare ups. You may need less charcoal since the grilling surface is closer to the coals on a Jumbo Joe than on a OTS or OTG.
 
Barry McCorkle said:
The coals look black under the grill. Were they grey and ashed over when you put the meat on? Other than that, parts of the chickens look over done from flare ups. You may need less charcoal since the grilling surface is closer to the coals on a Jumbo Joe than on a OTS or OTG.
Click to expand...

thanks for your response. The black coal, were not lit. I put some on top of the lit ones. I realized when I dumped the chimney full I had, that it didn't appear to be a lot.

I definitely agree about the over done parts being from the flare ups. I will try the less charcoal route next time. How many layers do you use? I assume you don't want them up against the grate?

Work in progress.. odd... one would think if you could use a smoker, this would be fool proof lol.

I think I got spoiled by having a temp gauge with the propane grill. I did use my wireless, and could have sworn it showed 569 degree's inside. I know that was off (was probably touching the grate), because the food still cooked in around the same amount of time it normally would (made sure it was 165 degrees).

Thanks again.
 
I think the off taste was the unlit charcoal lighting up, next time if you want to add more add some that is ashed over.

Then you can work on the placement of your heat and your food, I cook chicken indirect till close to the end, to keep from burning it up with it still under cooked by the bone. Does that make sense?
 
When cooking on a small grill with not a lot of space, it may be hard to have an indirect area to utilize. Therefore, you have to keep turning the food frequently. Another option is to get grill grates. I have grill grates on JJ and even when cooking 'direct' you don't have to flip as much. Good luck experimenting.
 
My last cook was also my first cook on the new Jumbo Joe. I used one of my Performer baskets and put one full Mini-Chimney of lit Kingsford Original Briquettes in the basket. That let me have two thirds of the grill for indirect. I used a throw away foil pan under the jerk chicken I was using. The cook time was close to that when I employed my Performer (only took a MiniChimney instead of a Big Chimney of coals). The JJ is large enough to get excellent results cooking indirect. I have excellent results by cooking chicken indirect then finishing direct to crisp things up. Recently, I have been removing the chicken skin before grilling. I really like naked chicken. The spices penetrate the meat instead of the skin and we LOVE the results.

http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?54804-First-Cook-with-the-Jumbo-Joe

Understand, if I have a WSM handy, my preferred method of cooking chicken is to remove the water pan on a WSM, use the top rack only, and dump one full chimney (large) of lit in the WSM and do direct. It is so far from the fire that you get NO flare up and the chicken comes out perfect. You might want to check out Chris' instructions on "Hot and Fast Chicken":

http://virtualweberbullet.com/chicken4.html

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
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