Had about 50 people over to celebrate this wonderful day. Ended up smoking 10 racks of Baby Backs on one Ranch Kettle. On the other, I had 24 burgers, 24 chicken breasts and 12 boneless thighs. On the Mini Ranch (26'er on a cut down RK cart), 36 ears of corn on the cob.
The day kept me kind of busy, to the point where I only stopped to take one photo.
I'd only done one cook on the RK on the left. The burnt chicken gives evidence to the fact that I need some more practice on it. I just picked up the RK on the right on Thursday and this was the first time cooking ribs on one. Didn't know how I'd be able to handle actually grilling 36 ears of corn on the Mini Ranch with everything else going on, so I just wrapped in foil and went indirect.
The cook was definitely educational. Did some research on the snake method on RKs and went with a 3x2 setup and started with about 20 lit coals and some hickory chunks two inches apart.. Vent furthest from the lit coals was wide open, other 2 were closed. Top vent was open as well. Temp climbed very slowly. Don't remember the order, but at some point I decide that the top vent was allowing all the heat to escape through it, so I close it down to about 1/3 - 1/4. Think I opened the other 2 bottom vents as well.
The head of the snake was a little below 11 o'clock and ran clockwise about 1/3 or the way around the RK. I used a rib rack/grate from my Smoke Hollow to hold 4 racks of ribs running left to right. I opened the lid and placed the rack at the front edge of the RK away from the snake and went to about the center of the grate and then closed her back up. I used 2 Char Broil rib racks side by side to hold 3 more racks. Opened the lid again and butted these up between the end of the SH rack and the snake. Had three racks to go. I opened the lid yet again and laid one flat on the grate on each side of the racks and having no more room, I laid the last rack of ribs on top of (and across) all the racked ribs. (Not sure if all of that makes sense, but basically, 7 racks running left to right standing up in rib racks. Went from the front of the RK to where the flip up grate starts. One rack laying on the grate on each of of the 7 racks, and the last rack laying on top of the 7, running from front to back of the grill.)
I then closed the lid and watched the temp. Wow, it was down around 140 and took forever to really start climbing. After what seemed like a day and a half, but probably only 20 mins, it had reached the 170s. At this rate, the ribs would be done about 1 or 2 hours after the last person left the party. As that would be problematic, I had to take action. I raised the lid, pulled up the flip up grate and just started adding charcoal to the snake. At best guess, I went from a 3x2 snake to a 4x3x2 or something like that. A short while later, the temp started to rise and ended up settling in at around 245ish. I had started putting the ribs on at around 10:30am and started pulling them off at 3:30ish. So, about 5 hours unfoiled. As things ended up, they were a bit over cooked for my taste as I like a little bit of tug. One of the reasons why they overcooked is that after they had settled in, I had to get the 2 other grills going.
The Mini was easy. I set up some bricks as heat shield and charcoal rail, dumped a full chimney at the back edge of the bowl and stacked the corn to cook indirect. Job done. On the other RK, placed the grate so the rods were going north/south and the flip ups were at 3 and 9. I raised the left hand side and laid down a chimney of unlit coals. I then dumped a full lit chimney on top of that. First batch of chicken (breasts and thighs marinated in Italian) went on direct heat to sear. Lid down, lid up, flip chicken, lid down, lid up, move to indirect. Next batch of chicken (breasts and thighs marinated in store bought Sesame Ginger) went on and I tried to repeat same process. While doing the first flip, I saw that I had burnt the holy living hell out of some of the pieces. I'm talking completely black crunchy char. Seriously, it was burnt. Simple remedy? Skip doing direct on the second side and move them all to indirect. Worked out ok as I had 24 burgers that needed to go on anyways. They were easy. Throw them on direct, flip, move the cooked ones to indirect and rotate the ones not done yet to the hot spots. They turned out just fine.
At this point, I grabbed a stack of aluminum pans and started clearing the grills. Corn came off and went inside. Chicken and burgers came off. Remembered that I was going to cook hotdogs for the little kids in attendance (and also a few of the adults), so I threw those on the MiniRK that was still blazing away. I then started on the ribs, pulling them one rack and a time, sliced up individual bones and sent pan after pan after pan of them into the house.
The day kept me kind of busy, to the point where I only stopped to take one photo.
I'd only done one cook on the RK on the left. The burnt chicken gives evidence to the fact that I need some more practice on it. I just picked up the RK on the right on Thursday and this was the first time cooking ribs on one. Didn't know how I'd be able to handle actually grilling 36 ears of corn on the Mini Ranch with everything else going on, so I just wrapped in foil and went indirect.
The cook was definitely educational. Did some research on the snake method on RKs and went with a 3x2 setup and started with about 20 lit coals and some hickory chunks two inches apart.. Vent furthest from the lit coals was wide open, other 2 were closed. Top vent was open as well. Temp climbed very slowly. Don't remember the order, but at some point I decide that the top vent was allowing all the heat to escape through it, so I close it down to about 1/3 - 1/4. Think I opened the other 2 bottom vents as well.
The head of the snake was a little below 11 o'clock and ran clockwise about 1/3 or the way around the RK. I used a rib rack/grate from my Smoke Hollow to hold 4 racks of ribs running left to right. I opened the lid and placed the rack at the front edge of the RK away from the snake and went to about the center of the grate and then closed her back up. I used 2 Char Broil rib racks side by side to hold 3 more racks. Opened the lid again and butted these up between the end of the SH rack and the snake. Had three racks to go. I opened the lid yet again and laid one flat on the grate on each side of the racks and having no more room, I laid the last rack of ribs on top of (and across) all the racked ribs. (Not sure if all of that makes sense, but basically, 7 racks running left to right standing up in rib racks. Went from the front of the RK to where the flip up grate starts. One rack laying on the grate on each of of the 7 racks, and the last rack laying on top of the 7, running from front to back of the grill.)
I then closed the lid and watched the temp. Wow, it was down around 140 and took forever to really start climbing. After what seemed like a day and a half, but probably only 20 mins, it had reached the 170s. At this rate, the ribs would be done about 1 or 2 hours after the last person left the party. As that would be problematic, I had to take action. I raised the lid, pulled up the flip up grate and just started adding charcoal to the snake. At best guess, I went from a 3x2 snake to a 4x3x2 or something like that. A short while later, the temp started to rise and ended up settling in at around 245ish. I had started putting the ribs on at around 10:30am and started pulling them off at 3:30ish. So, about 5 hours unfoiled. As things ended up, they were a bit over cooked for my taste as I like a little bit of tug. One of the reasons why they overcooked is that after they had settled in, I had to get the 2 other grills going.
The Mini was easy. I set up some bricks as heat shield and charcoal rail, dumped a full chimney at the back edge of the bowl and stacked the corn to cook indirect. Job done. On the other RK, placed the grate so the rods were going north/south and the flip ups were at 3 and 9. I raised the left hand side and laid down a chimney of unlit coals. I then dumped a full lit chimney on top of that. First batch of chicken (breasts and thighs marinated in Italian) went on direct heat to sear. Lid down, lid up, flip chicken, lid down, lid up, move to indirect. Next batch of chicken (breasts and thighs marinated in store bought Sesame Ginger) went on and I tried to repeat same process. While doing the first flip, I saw that I had burnt the holy living hell out of some of the pieces. I'm talking completely black crunchy char. Seriously, it was burnt. Simple remedy? Skip doing direct on the second side and move them all to indirect. Worked out ok as I had 24 burgers that needed to go on anyways. They were easy. Throw them on direct, flip, move the cooked ones to indirect and rotate the ones not done yet to the hot spots. They turned out just fine.
At this point, I grabbed a stack of aluminum pans and started clearing the grills. Corn came off and went inside. Chicken and burgers came off. Remembered that I was going to cook hotdogs for the little kids in attendance (and also a few of the adults), so I threw those on the MiniRK that was still blazing away. I then started on the ribs, pulling them one rack and a time, sliced up individual bones and sent pan after pan after pan of them into the house.
Didn't help that I had two big bricks sitting on the charcoal rack.
