Will Std Weber Grill work for barbquing ribs for 5 hours?


 
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DavidD

TVWBB Super Fan
I am new, but have been reading. A lot seem to use smokers. I don't understand the difference very well as they seem to use charcoal, like I do with my 22 inch weber grill, though i don't add water.

anyway, I already have a weber gas grill and the charcoal, so buying a smoker is not in the cards. Can i use either of my grills to make great ribs? I have found the gas struggles to keep the temp below 250 degrees, though shutting down the main gas to just a crack worked. I can maintain 225 all day.

anyway, please advise.
 
Before I got my smoker, I did ribs on the 22.5" Weber. I was able to hold a temp of 250 for 8 hours without adding additional fuel. Of course you don't need 8 hours for ribs, but the point is you can do ribs on the kettle. Here is how you do it.

If you have a "one touch" kettle, then you will have a hard time knowing how much your vents are open. Before you get started, take a permanent marker and mark the positions for 100% open, 75% open, 50% open, 25% open and 0% open.

Purchase 3 firebricks. It should not cost more than 10 dollars. Set up two of them on edge about a third of the way across. The big side will be the indirect side where you will place your meat; the other side is where you will place the coals.

On the small side, line up the charcoal around the edge three briquettes wide like this. Make a pyramid by adding two more layers, the second one should be two briquettes wide and the top one just 1 briquette.

Now light just 5 briquettes by placing a large tin can inside your chimney. When those five briquettes are ashed over, place them at one end of your line of charcoal. Place wood chunks on top of the briquettes about every three inches. This pyramid will burn around like dominos in slow motion. Add the third firebrick above the charcoal as a heat sink. Some people use a water pan above the coals in their kettle, but you can't get a very big pan above the coals and you will get a temp spike when the water runs out. The firebrick works much better as a heat sink.

It will take about 20 minutes to get up to temp. Place your meat on right away, and when the temp gets to 200 close the vent down to 25%. You may have to shut down the bottom vent completely to run at 250.

Avoid opening the lid more than once every couple of hours, because you will give too much oxygen to the coals if you do.

If you have any attachments that fit onto the edge of your kettle, take them off when you want to do ribs or other long smoking at low temps, because your lid will fit tighter without them.
 
You can do just about any type of BBQ on your kettle. It is a versatile cooker and if I could have just one, it would be a kettle. In addition to Davids very fine method, you can use the BBQ Baffle which
works very well and is not expensive.
 
I agree that you can do ribs on a kettle w/ good results. Iput a water pan in the middle and about every 45-60 minutes add a couple unlit coals to ea side and some more chips. Try rolling the ribs and putting a skewer in them and put them on their side.
 
David L, thx for the tip. I am cooking my ribs using your technique. So far, it has been 4 hours, 43 min and the temp has been at 230 degrees the entire time. I ran two rows instead of three since i have always heard the temp should be 225, not 250. However, the only thing I am concerned about is, at almost five hours, the meat has not pulled back from the bone like i would expect. For temp monitoring, I stuck the thermo in one of the holes in the lid over the meat (indirect side) and it says 230. Should i be running a higher temp?

How long should it take 5.5 pounds of St. Louis spareribs. It's a pretty big rack, but i figured 5 hours was enough.
 
I measure at the lid, which will usually be about 20 degrees warmer than the grill level. If you are measuring 230 at the lid, you are probably cooking your meat at 210-215. You will probably have great ribs, but they will just take a little longer. If you are getting impatient, you can foil them and add a few tablespoons of juice or wine, but I wouldn't foil them for more than 40 minutes or they can get mushy.
 
Well, i ran out of time. it was 7:15pm and time for dinner, so despite the meat not pulling back more than a smidgeon, I pulled the ribs. The meat was pink and juicy, but not especially tender. The meat wasn't bad, just not real tender. I pulled the ribs at 5 hours, 30 minutes and from what i could see, another hour or 1.5 hours would have been perfect.

In hindsight, i guess the proper lid temp was 250 for a grill level temp of 230. Under this scenario, how long would you expect 5.5 lbs of spareribs to take?
 
Spareribs should take about 6 hours.

The important thing is that you learned how to hold a low temperature on your grill. With that knowledge, you can cook up some fantastic Q in the future.

How steady were the temperatures, and did you make it to the end without adding charcoal? My experience is that with the firebricks, the kettle holds a temperature almost as steady as the WSM.
 
I was very impressed with the process and the temp holding ability. it worked great. I just held the temp too low. I had to add coals b/c i did not put enough. I counted them but now forget. It was two rows with appx 18 in each row. I think you had 3 rows with 25 each, so 75 vs. my 36. I had to add about 8-10 more. Also used water in a meatloaf pan, 1/3 full. I couldn't find the firebricks at homedepot so i used two red bricks from my fireplace (leftovers). hopefully no harmful fumes.
 
Check your yellow pages for places that build fireplaces. That is where I got mine after striking out at home depot. You will get even better results with firebricks.

I don't think it burns much hotter with a pyramid three briquettes wide; just much longer.
 
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