Mike-GA
TVWBB Super Fan
I picked up an OnlyFire Grill Smoking Attachment Kit for 18” Weber Kettle back around Christmas and just took it out for a first run last night. In short, I give this new toy 2 thumbs up.
I bought the extension kit mostly so I could hang a duck and other strips of meat. It makes my regular 18” kettle a lot more versatile by adding 18” WSM capabilities with the bonus of not having to bend down. For first test, I decided to try out small load of hanging Char Siu (Roasted Pork).
Build Review: I bought the OnlyFire kit off eBay as an unused open box that I negotiated down to $85. The height gives me additional headroom of about 1.5”ft to hang proteins. It comes with a robust wire hanging system that is contoured to the lid of the kettle and 16 stainless steel meat S-hooks. The main barrel body is about 13.5” tall and made of substantially thick stainless steel that feels like very good quality. The barrel body has 2 handles, 2 silicon probe ports, and integrated hardware to support 3 levels of grill grates. (OnlyFire also sells an additional rotisserie kit that could be mounted to hardware that is already inside body.) The large door has 2 black phenolic knobs to allow easy access and the door also integrates a seal that effectively prevents any smoke leakage. The knobs get pretty hot during cook but not enough to burn me. The barrel body fits well on the base and lid of kettle but with a little play. There is slight smoke leakage in those areas but not enough for me to want to do anything about it. I suppose I could use adhesive oven seal strips to eliminate any leakage.
It doesn’t come with a diffuser so I’m using a lid from a 32 qtr. tamale pot I have (left over from a Mini WSM I built) until I find a better diffuser solution. I also made a charcoal basket out of a sheet of expanded steel from Lowes.
In case the pork didn’t turn out in this test, I hedged my bets by doing chicken wings on my SSP.
Results: The results were very good. Meat was moist, had the right texture, and outside had great color/caramelizing that is as close as I’ve ever come to traditional Char Siu hanging in a real Asian restaurant window. I let the strips of pork cook at a pretty high temp in grill and cooked meat to higher internal temp than I’d normally do but it still turned out great. It’s even better than my normal kettle direct/indirect cooking on the grill grate.
Learnings: Although the result were the best I’ve ever done with Char Siu, next time I’ll probably cook at a lower grill temp for longer, have a water bowl to further increase moistness and most importantly, have a drip tray to collect all the succulent drippings so I can pour on top of the Char Siu after it's thinly sliced when serving.
Next up will be a Roasted Duck. After that, I'll do some low-n-slow smoked ribs or pork butt.
I bought the extension kit mostly so I could hang a duck and other strips of meat. It makes my regular 18” kettle a lot more versatile by adding 18” WSM capabilities with the bonus of not having to bend down. For first test, I decided to try out small load of hanging Char Siu (Roasted Pork).
Build Review: I bought the OnlyFire kit off eBay as an unused open box that I negotiated down to $85. The height gives me additional headroom of about 1.5”ft to hang proteins. It comes with a robust wire hanging system that is contoured to the lid of the kettle and 16 stainless steel meat S-hooks. The main barrel body is about 13.5” tall and made of substantially thick stainless steel that feels like very good quality. The barrel body has 2 handles, 2 silicon probe ports, and integrated hardware to support 3 levels of grill grates. (OnlyFire also sells an additional rotisserie kit that could be mounted to hardware that is already inside body.) The large door has 2 black phenolic knobs to allow easy access and the door also integrates a seal that effectively prevents any smoke leakage. The knobs get pretty hot during cook but not enough to burn me. The barrel body fits well on the base and lid of kettle but with a little play. There is slight smoke leakage in those areas but not enough for me to want to do anything about it. I suppose I could use adhesive oven seal strips to eliminate any leakage.
It doesn’t come with a diffuser so I’m using a lid from a 32 qtr. tamale pot I have (left over from a Mini WSM I built) until I find a better diffuser solution. I also made a charcoal basket out of a sheet of expanded steel from Lowes.
In case the pork didn’t turn out in this test, I hedged my bets by doing chicken wings on my SSP.
Results: The results were very good. Meat was moist, had the right texture, and outside had great color/caramelizing that is as close as I’ve ever come to traditional Char Siu hanging in a real Asian restaurant window. I let the strips of pork cook at a pretty high temp in grill and cooked meat to higher internal temp than I’d normally do but it still turned out great. It’s even better than my normal kettle direct/indirect cooking on the grill grate.
Learnings: Although the result were the best I’ve ever done with Char Siu, next time I’ll probably cook at a lower grill temp for longer, have a water bowl to further increase moistness and most importantly, have a drip tray to collect all the succulent drippings so I can pour on top of the Char Siu after it's thinly sliced when serving.
Next up will be a Roasted Duck. After that, I'll do some low-n-slow smoked ribs or pork butt.
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