Chris Hill
New member
I did not see a post describing this method of slow and low on a basic Weber grill and thought I'd give a general description here and document a cola glazed ribs cook for the block party yesterday. The snake method is arranging a row of coals around the outside edge of the charcoal grate where it touches the kettle wall, another row arranged just inside of that, and another row on top of the other two, so you have a charcoal snake going around the outside of the grate. Light about 15 coals in an upside down chimney starter with some of your smoke wood, and put the fully lit coals at one end of the snake. With the bottom vents 100% open and the top vent set to 50-66%, I get stable temps around 250 in the center. The snake uses surprisingly little charcoal, and you can adjust the length of the snake to the length of the cook: with a snake going ~300 degrees around the kettle, I had it at 250 for 12 hours. The pros of the method are: easy, fuel efficient, and anybody with a 22.5" Weber can do it, even with a one touch which is difficult to adjust the bottom vents. The cons of the method are: it's better for smaller cuts of meat to avoid direct cooking and because of the 50-125 degree difference between directly over the coals and the far end of the kettle, and it's probably better described as direct/indirect than indirect unless you use a roasting pan, and flipping and rotating the meat is a bit tricky because the direction of your heat source changes throughout the cook. Here are two pics showing the start of one of my early tests of the snake method. I believe these two were the test which went for 12 hours.
And the lit coals at one end of the snake:
On to the cook. I arranged 8 hours worth of coals and wood the night before and rubbed 3 racks of ribs and soaked them in 1/2 C Mexican Coke. By morning they had absorbed almost all of the cola! Here's the lighting of the coals at 5:45 am, blurry photo captures my state of mind at that hour:
Ribs on, 6 am:
9 am:
Started the cola glaze inside at 11:30 am. Started applying it at noon and put it on the grill to keep it cooking down. Should have let the glaze go for 1.5-2 hours before applying because it was still pretty liquid until that point. Here's the cook at noon with the glaze on the grill:
And the meat just before it came off the grill at 1:45 pm:
Meat removed so you can see the last few coals are starting to burn at 1:45 pm:
And the finished product:

And the lit coals at one end of the snake:

On to the cook. I arranged 8 hours worth of coals and wood the night before and rubbed 3 racks of ribs and soaked them in 1/2 C Mexican Coke. By morning they had absorbed almost all of the cola! Here's the lighting of the coals at 5:45 am, blurry photo captures my state of mind at that hour:

Ribs on, 6 am:

9 am:

Started the cola glaze inside at 11:30 am. Started applying it at noon and put it on the grill to keep it cooking down. Should have let the glaze go for 1.5-2 hours before applying because it was still pretty liquid until that point. Here's the cook at noon with the glaze on the grill:

And the meat just before it came off the grill at 1:45 pm:

Meat removed so you can see the last few coals are starting to burn at 1:45 pm:

And the finished product:
