This weekend my brother came to visit for Easter and wanted to return home with a lot of BBQ. So we planned a big dinner for Saturday, and cooked enough food so as to have lots left over.
The menu was:
- 3 pork shoulders, 8lb each
- 1 packer brisket, 12lb
- 4 racks back ribs
The objective was to serve it all at dinnertime on Saturday. We put the briset and pork on at about 11pm on Friday night after a dinner that went pretty late -- which was problem #1 since it was too late to be setting up the bullet IMO and we had to rush a bit. Rushing is not part of the fun of BBQ.
We managed to fit all 3 shoulders onto the top grate (18" bullet, btw), although we had to stand them up and use a couple of bamboo skewers to ensure they didn't fall over. As is typical for the 18" bullet, the packer didn't fit properly on the bottom grate, although we managed to not have it touching the sides.
The MM start was fine, and we went to bed before the temp came up fully. When I woke up at 7 it was steady at 244 lid temp so that was good. No idea how long it took to get up to temp.
Well, the plan was that the brisket would finish by 2pm so we could get the ribs on for a 7pm dinner. But the brisket was not cooperating so we foiled it at 1:30pm. The butts were also going slower than normal, and I didn't want to over-smoke them when I added fresh wood chunks for the ribs. So we foiled them too. Then we piled the 3 foiled shoulders on top of the foiled brisket on the bottom grate, and added the ribs to the top grate.
Maybe the cooker took longer to get up to temp and that was causing the slow progress. I was asleep, so no idea.
More charcoal was added too, and in removing the middle cooking section a healthy splash of "grease water" spilled out of the water pan and onto the deck.
But of course the brisket was soon ready to be taken off, so we needed to remove everything to access it on the bottom (bearing in mind fresh smoke wood had been added to we were getting pretty "smoked" ourselves).
Then the shoulders needed to get removed, so again the ribs were interrupted to remove the pork beneath.
All the while we are getting ourselves very "smoked", and of course the foil covering the meat on the lower grate is now covered with grease dripping off the ribs above so the whole things is a mess.
Since the ribs were put on a bit later than we wanted, we also interrupted them a few more times to foil them, remove foil, brush sauce, then finally remove.
Then of course all of this needed to be pulled / carved for serving.
Although the meat turned out fine, overall this BBQ was much less fun than what I have done in the past. Usually I do a single type of meat, and I don't need to intervene in the cooking process until the food is almost done. I have in the past done a couple of shoulders plus a packer in one session, but they have pretty similar times. In this case the ribs were the real curveball, [particularly since they had to go on before everything else was done.
I have gotten to the point that I can wear the same clothes to dinner as the ones I cooked in (i.e. I don't smell like a campfire). Not so this time.
In retrospect I should have piled all the foiled meat onthe top grate and had the ribs on the bottom -- that would have made things a bit easier.
Others may relish the complexity or challenge of preparing a big BBQ dinner like this. But personally I have concluded that I will stick to single-item BBQ and will consider purchasing a second WSM for those instances where I want to cook different types of food.
The menu was:
- 3 pork shoulders, 8lb each
- 1 packer brisket, 12lb
- 4 racks back ribs
The objective was to serve it all at dinnertime on Saturday. We put the briset and pork on at about 11pm on Friday night after a dinner that went pretty late -- which was problem #1 since it was too late to be setting up the bullet IMO and we had to rush a bit. Rushing is not part of the fun of BBQ.
We managed to fit all 3 shoulders onto the top grate (18" bullet, btw), although we had to stand them up and use a couple of bamboo skewers to ensure they didn't fall over. As is typical for the 18" bullet, the packer didn't fit properly on the bottom grate, although we managed to not have it touching the sides.
The MM start was fine, and we went to bed before the temp came up fully. When I woke up at 7 it was steady at 244 lid temp so that was good. No idea how long it took to get up to temp.
Well, the plan was that the brisket would finish by 2pm so we could get the ribs on for a 7pm dinner. But the brisket was not cooperating so we foiled it at 1:30pm. The butts were also going slower than normal, and I didn't want to over-smoke them when I added fresh wood chunks for the ribs. So we foiled them too. Then we piled the 3 foiled shoulders on top of the foiled brisket on the bottom grate, and added the ribs to the top grate.
Maybe the cooker took longer to get up to temp and that was causing the slow progress. I was asleep, so no idea.
More charcoal was added too, and in removing the middle cooking section a healthy splash of "grease water" spilled out of the water pan and onto the deck.
But of course the brisket was soon ready to be taken off, so we needed to remove everything to access it on the bottom (bearing in mind fresh smoke wood had been added to we were getting pretty "smoked" ourselves).
Then the shoulders needed to get removed, so again the ribs were interrupted to remove the pork beneath.
All the while we are getting ourselves very "smoked", and of course the foil covering the meat on the lower grate is now covered with grease dripping off the ribs above so the whole things is a mess.
Since the ribs were put on a bit later than we wanted, we also interrupted them a few more times to foil them, remove foil, brush sauce, then finally remove.
Then of course all of this needed to be pulled / carved for serving.
Although the meat turned out fine, overall this BBQ was much less fun than what I have done in the past. Usually I do a single type of meat, and I don't need to intervene in the cooking process until the food is almost done. I have in the past done a couple of shoulders plus a packer in one session, but they have pretty similar times. In this case the ribs were the real curveball, [particularly since they had to go on before everything else was done.
I have gotten to the point that I can wear the same clothes to dinner as the ones I cooked in (i.e. I don't smell like a campfire). Not so this time.
In retrospect I should have piled all the foiled meat onthe top grate and had the ribs on the bottom -- that would have made things a bit easier.
Others may relish the complexity or challenge of preparing a big BBQ dinner like this. But personally I have concluded that I will stick to single-item BBQ and will consider purchasing a second WSM for those instances where I want to cook different types of food.
