Kettle Temp Control Questions for BBQ


 
L

Laura D

TVWBB Fan
Dear Everyone - it's me, Laura. I have been searching the forum and the internet and I have several questions about temp control on my 22.5 OTG.

#1 is I'm on a Chris Lilly kick and I'm going to try his loaf pan chicken tomorrow. I'm going to build a fire on one side of the grill and cook the chicken for 2ish hours. The temp he says to get at is 300 degrees. I was thinking of 20 unlit briquettes, some apple wood chunks, and then place 12 lit briquettes (Stubb's!) on top. Empty drip pan underneath the loaf pan chicken just in case. Keep vents open and adjust when it starts to climb towards 300. Sound good? Any other ways you like better?

#2 I'm going to do ribs again this weekend - might do a Chris Lilly recipe or a Harry Soo! Either way I'm completely excited, ribs twice in one week! I am interested in doing a higher temp than what I did the ribs last Sunday - 200-225 on the Smokenator is what I did, and it was delicious. I want to either get up to 250 or 275 depending on the rib recipe I choose (I'm guessing the Smokenator doesn't run that hot but I'm going to pop over to that forum and ask them). I'm guessing maybe 40 unlit briquettes on one side of the grill, hickory wood chunks, 12-16 lit briquettes, empty drip pan.

Most of my indirect has been putting the briquettes in baskets on either side of a pan, it is new to me to do the two zone fire but I like it and want to get the hang of it.

#3 is a Smokenator question, in case anyone has one and has an interest in answering - in the directions it says that 250 degrees is too hot for the Smokenator, but does it run at temps 250-300? When I tried (and I didn't try very hard) I kept it around 225 and was delighted that it could do that for 6 hours with barely any bothering. Love it! I'm interested in using it for these cooks and also won't bother if won't get that hot.

Thank you - hope you are all eating delicious food -

Laura
 
Hey Laura D, I use 1 1/4 fire bricks and bank my coals to the side, I usually put in enough unlit and add my minion coals plus wood chunks and it's just below the grate, briqs are cheap so i don't count the unlit. #1 sounds like your good, #2 sounds like your on the game plan, I've been having good luck with ribs at 250-275 on my wsm you should do fine with the OTG just watch the temps going up. #3 I've not used the smokenator but I have cooked many briskets High Heat on the kettle for 5 plus hours with just adding a few coals at the end after foiling. I mounted a lid therm for grins and it seem fairly accurate, I use the toothpick test for doneness on the ribs! good cookin!
 
This is great - thank you! I look forward to BBQing the loaf pan chicken tonight, we'll see how it goes!

Laura
 
I separate about 1/3 of the coal area for the coals with a couple of fire bricks (leaving 2/3rds for indirect cooking). I have marked my ash catcher so I know how open or closed the bottom vent is. I start a chimney full of unlit behind the bricks. I then take up to a dozen briquettes off the stack and light them. When lit I spread them evenly over the top of the unlit. I can get several hours of 300 degree temps (top vent half open and the bottom vent only about 1/8th open). I use a Maverick 732 wired up to the meat and one probe for grill temperature at the food grill level.

http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?25041-Smoked-Picnic-on-the-OTG

FWIW
Dale53
 
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Tonight went great! I have never tried the Minion method before and I got my kettle to 300 and pretty much stayed there for two hours. Amazing. This is like magic voodoo to me, I'm so pleased. I'm going to have a lot of fun with the Minion method!

I also have marked my ash catcher - Open, half way, closed, and the pencil width 3/8" for reference for the Smokenator. I bought fire bricks today, I have the bigger ones - went to buy the thinner ones but the guy charged me for the big ones, it was closing time and I was out in the yard picking them up and didn't want to deal with it so I took them to try. I think they are too big and with no way to trim them I'll pick up the thinner ones. Maybe I'll do a tuscan grill in the fireplace with my thicker fire bricks and my Craycort cast iron grates. :)

At any rate, I'm so pleased. My loaf pan chicken was perfectly done. I have a terrible cold so I couldn't really smell it or taste it but oh, it looked amazing and it was juicy. My cousin tried it and said it was delicious and she is a tough sell, so it must be good.

I look forward to trying ribs this weekend. This is so fun.

Thanks again -

Laura
 
I wouldn't worry about the fire brick thickness too much. You're just using them to contain the coals and add a little heat sink to the kettle. Thick or thin they will contain the coals. The thicker ones will only give you more of a heat sink.

Glad everything is working out so well. Fun, isn't it?
 
It's more braising than smoking, but Chris Lilly's loaf pan chicken is the juiciest bird to come off my grill. I love the spices in the rub with the apple sauce, and it's a nice change from grilled or smoked.

As for smoking on the kettle, the Smokinator allows a little more cooking space on the kettle, adds some moisture, and obviously helps keep temps down, if that's what you want. So it's mainly a help for ribs, if you ask me. Firebricks add some mass to hold heat and temps. To tell the truth though, the Weber kettle two-zone indirect set-up is usually just fine with neither, and all you really need is some tin foil to make clean-up easier. I say that's all you need, but the kettle needs to be in good shape if you want to be able to control the temp. It's obvious that you don't want to start with much lit charcoal and the vents need to be shut way back, but another reason that folks have trouble keeping temps down is bad fit with the lid. It's not always obvious, either. I recommend getting out a tape measure and checking the radius of the lid and bowl in different spots if you're not sure. My dad's OTS has been storm-tossed, knocked over by grandkids, and maybe run over by the tractor. So every time we're down there it's a challenge to bend the lid and bowl back into shape to where they seal good enough to not let in much air. It's gotten pretty bad off though, so last time I ended up doing fast and foiled spares.

If you use the Smokinator though and are concerned with getting the temps up high enough to get bark, you might try leaving your ribs out at room temp for a little while to loose their chill, and also start off with enough lit briqs. I know the pan is small, but go ahead and pour some hot tap in there, not cold. Lately I've only been using water in my wsm for ribs, but I pour some hot tap in and then some boiling water out of a tea kettle right before I put the ribs on to help get the temp up quicker. I only had the Smokinator for a little while, but seem to remember being puzzled about the temp differences in the kettle. It seems like it exaggerates the regular two-zone indirect set-up where the high temps are well above the grate, if I recall. I mention that to impress the importance of getting a grate temp, not just lid temp, and maybe ribs might could use a flipping to cook more evenly(?).

Enough of my rambling. Hope you get over the cold, and let us know how your next rib cook goes.
 
Well the brick´s are there to stop the radiant heat! Not really the temp of the grill(sure they will do a great jobb doing that)

Try out some indirect cooking. I almost never use my brick´s any more. Do it for the delicate type of cook´s. But a 1/3 Zone fire is what i cook on. Min-fuel. Maxed indirect area.
 
Again, thanks everyone. I'm excited to try the Harry Soo ribs recipe tomorrow for my friends. They enjoy my grilled dinners and now they get to try my BBQ. Woo hoo!

I have a couple questions - Dave where do you put the tin foil? Under the ribs instead of a drip pan? I have seen people do that and I was concerned about airflow but it probably doesn't matter.

Also I am going to try and figure out wood placement - when I used the Smokenator for my ribs last weekend I think I had them too close to the top - wood burned merrily away while the kettle was still coming up to temp and my food was ready to go but not in yet. My ribs could have used a little more smoke but they were still delicious. I'll bury the wood a little deeper this time in my indirect cook and try to layer it so it gets in the first two hours of the ribs (I err on the side of not over smoking, yuck).

I've been placing my grate thermometer in the middle close to where the fire is but just on the non heated side. Seem like a good place for it?

Also with my kettle - the seal seems to be really good unless I cheat and let the grate thermometer thread go under the lid instead of through the vent. I also do not have the problem of too hot temps - if anything my kettle wants to run a little less hot than what I've been reading on the internet of what people do to get higher temps. I know it is easier to arrive at the temp from below rather than cool down a kettle so I'm okay arriving at it and bumping up the temp to what I need, but I am definitely having a different experience than what I'm reading from other people on the web (and burning through briquettes a bit more quickly than what they are experiencing). The weather has been lovely here, not windy, pretty mild, so I don't think it is that. Anyway, me and my kettle are figuring this out together and I admit I took a picture of my Maverick thermometer when it read 300 and stayed there for 2 hours. My first attempts at BBQ while I was successfully learning to grill at the same time were disasters - I mean everything tastes good over fire, but it is exciting to start to figure this out.

Laura
 
Anywhere on the grate is fine for checking temp as long as it's not too close to the meat or the fire, and sure, a drip pan is fine. Foil is cheaper though, and can be used to not only catch drippings, but to seal air off so it only comes up through the coals. It might not be the best idea with the Smokinator, though. Are you gonna just run the Smokinator without the water pan or go with a simple two zone for the Fast and foiled ribs?
 
I am going to do Harry Soo's St. Louis recipe. I can't be sure I can get the Smokenator up to 275-300 so I'll do a two zone fire with a drip pan (minion method to keep it going for 4 hours). I might put hot water in a drip pan. Or if I decide to not use liquid maybe I will foil on the cool side of the grate. Or maybe I will foil the grate and put a smaller pan of hot water over the coals. Hmmmm! Still have a few hours to research!

Laura
 
Thanks! I did his set up for part of the cook. I found at the beginning it made the temp too low for what I was shooting for, so I removed the water pan on the grate. Temp shot up like 80 degrees in 30 seconds! That was a huge surprise. But I got it under control. It was a little harder for me to keep the temp steady in the 275-300 range. I did eventually and it settled down at 298, but today was kind of bronco kettle day. It was fun, though - I keep learning a lot.

AND THOSE RIBS. WERE. AMAZING!!! I got Harry Soo's sparerib recipe from here, try it! There were no leftovers, and nobody talked at dinner. So good!

What a great week. Thanks again for all the help and pointers, I learned a lot this week. Going to have to plan my next cook!

Thank you -

Laura
 
Regarding the pan, been there, done that. Even some pros use a water pan cooking at higher temps, but if you're gonna foil the meat during the cook anyway, I don't see the point.

Glad everyone liked the ribs! I have to remind myself every so often that's what counts. :-)
 
I just did 2 Boston Butts last night on my Kettle and I had to finish them off in the oven. First time ever that I had to do that. I put them on at 7pm, checked them at midnight and added a few more coals. I woke at 5 and checked them. The temp was down to 150* (from 225-250*). I added a few more coals and opened the vents up but it strugled to get to 200*. It was cold last night but no wind. Weird. But you know what they say "sometimes you eat the butt and other times the Butt eats you" LOL
 
Scott - It is weird - my kettle has been pretty constant, which is great because it helps me learn how to control the temps. Yesterday was a perfect sunny day in San Francisco, which may have been why my kettle was freaking out - very confused because normally we are grilling/BBQ in foggy slightly chilly weather.

I've only done one pork butt in my life (my first BBQ cook since joining this forum) and I had to throw it in the oven too in the end. It turned out fantastic anyway but now that I have these tools - minion method and my Smokenator, plus I want to try Chris Lilly's encirclement method - I feel more confident about my temps and keeping them where I need them.

Hope you enjoyed your Boston butts!

Chris - I'm telling you, those ribs were so good. I am so proud of myself. What a great week it has been for BBQ. I really appreciate your help, now I feel like I have a handle/start on how to do this, I will keep experimenting. Now tonight - grilling steaks over lump! :)

Laura
 
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