My first cook with WSM, 4 -6 racks of ribs (small) how much charcoal ?

[Guest]

Hi all,

Ok, I think I have narrowed down my first smoke session ever with my new WSM,

I am going to do 4-6 racks of small ribs, - they probabally will fit on one rack.

Question 1: - which rack to use ?

Question 2: - How much charcoal ?

I'm guessing the ribs would take 6 hours maximum ? ....

So I wondering how much charcoal I should be using... ?

And oh .. .

Question 3: I guess I don't need the Minion method for my planned session ?

the ribs I'll be doing look like this:
http://www.ottawa5star.com/bbqpix/
(disregard the sauce and stuff, I was doing some Pepsi ribs in the recipe you see here )

Thank you in advance.

Mark.

 

[Doug D]

1) Not necessarily any rack. You could roll and skewer them and still fit 4-6. Wait, do you mean grate? There are racks of ribs, [metal] racks to cook them in, and grates to cook them on. I prefer the upper grate to cook ribs.
2) 2 Weber chimneys ought to suffice.
3) You could probably be finished in 6 hours if it's above 75* outside (solar gain).
4) Minion? -- apologies to Jim, but no-- you can expect 7-8 hours from two fully-lit Weber chimney-fulls at 75-80* and little or no wind, with proper vent management.

Cotes levees de flanc de porc (sternum enleve)? That's a long way to go to say pork spare ribs! /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>What kind of ribs are these ? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Looks like St. Louis trimmed spares to me. CAD6.29/kg = CAD2.86/lb = USD2.10/lb. = not bad.

 

[Guest]

Morning Doug,

thanks for the info, yeah when I said grill I meant "grate" I guess

Anyway I guess I'll go ahead and try this today if weather permits, storms expected again today, it's depressing.

So for coal, one chimney of unlit coal into the WSM, then light up the 2nd chimney and put it into the middle I guess....

if one takes a lit chimeny of coals and pours them over unlit coals but spreads out the lit coals, then this kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it .... I guess this would light all the coals up, and greatly shorten the time of all coals in the WSM.

Yeah the french description is long:
Cotes levees de flanc de porc (sternum enleve)?

Cotes levees = "ribs"
flac = "side" I believe. put it all together
and you get spareribs of flank of pork,
on and that "stenum enleve" = "sternum removed"

 

[Doug D]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by BBQ Mark:
[qb]
So for coal, one chimney of unlit coal into the WSM, then light up the 2nd chimney and put it into the middle I guess....

if one takes a lit chimeny of coals and pours them over unlit coals but spreads out the lit coals, then this kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it .... I guess this would light all the coals up, and greatly shorten the time of all coals in the WSM.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I put my charcoal bowl together-- bowl, grate(s), ring, and set my filled chimney inside the ring and get it lit and going. I then dump that into the charcoal ring and use the chimney to measure out another amount, and spread that unlit charcoal onto the lit coals. Now, the charcoal ring acts like a big chimney to convect heat upwards to light the unlit briquets on top.

(I say grates because I use a smaller Weber replacement charcoal grate for a small kettle oriented at 90 degrees to the WSM's to keep small coals from falling through.)