Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed your story.
BOB SOUTAR.ONWARD THRU THE FOG
-----Original Message-----
From: blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rob
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 12:05 PM
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindcooks] First Kettle Smoke
Hi there, my fellow culinary travelers in foodland. I am back with another
adventure.
UP until now, I have been cooking quick things on my kettle style grill.
This is, after all, what they are designed for. Kebabs, steaks, burgers.
Things like that.
Yesterday, I took the plunge and decided to make a couple racks of baby back
ribs on it. These are smaller, and thus take less time than a full rack of
spareribs; plus they are my favorite cut anyway.
My girlfriend made some potato salad, and a summer vegetable
medley--asperagus, zuccini, onions, and a few carrots. The ribs were
wonderful (she said that I spoiled her for any other type of ribs) but
cooking them was ... an experience.
I washed the ribs in vinegar, and then I soaked them in a saltwater brine
for two hours. A rub consisting of black pepper, chili powder, paprika,
cumin, oregano and salt went on, and they were left to sit for another hour,
while I got things ready. I did not use brown sugar as is called for in many
types of rubs, because sugar burns pretty easily and I did not want that to
happen on my first rib cook. Not on this piece of equipment anyway.
First of all, a kettle grill burns a lot hotter than a smoker. I think
because it is a wider, flatter area with more airflow, which means the
charcoal burns faster. This in turn means a chimney starter of charcoal will
last about an hour before it needs replacing. Well, morelike 45 minutes,
because I only used about four quarts of charcoal instead of a full six.
What I did was got the starter going, poured the charcoal on one side of the
grill and spread it out. I threw on two chunks of hicory wood (not soaked in
water, what a bad idea that is!), and Then I put one of those alluminum pans
full of water on the other side. I got the smart idea of using a watering
can to fill the pan while it was already in place, rather than trying to
carry a full flimsy pan of water all the way outside.
I got one of those rib racks. It has enough space to put five racks of ribs
on it, standing upright, rather than lying flat on the grill. This makes
transporting wet racks a lot easier, and the spice rub won't come off on
your mits; you can just turn the rack when you need to rotate the ribs. Very
handy.
Well, I ran into a couple of problems. I do not have a fire safe platform to
start the chimney starter, so for the initial fire, I set it on the charcoal
grate and light it there. I am not comfortable working with hot fire on
grass. Newspaper ashes and sparks fly everywhere, and I don't want to start
a fire in my yard. So, starting the chimney in the grill is what I do.
This is fine when you are making quick stuff, but when you are doing a slow
cook where you have to replace the coals every forty-five minutes... well,
it gets kind of tedious. I had to take the cooking grate off, remove the
water pan, put my chimney in place, and wait another twenty minutes while
the charcoal engaged. Then rearrange coals, put my water pan back in, put
the cooking grate back on, and hope the ribs weren't going to be
disappointing because they had to sit on the table for twenty minutes or so.
Fortunately, the ribs came out just fine, after another 45 minutes. AT
least, they were done to the point I wanted them to be done. I finished them
in the oven, because I was tired of that whole coal replacement procedure.
I put them on a rack above a cookie sheet, mixed apple juice, cider vinegar
and brown sugar and poured it over the bottom of the sheet. Then I wrapped
the whole thing in foil and put it in a 325 degree oven for an hour and a
half.
My fears were groundless. The ribs were great, and we both made pigs of
ourselves. Pun intended.
I think, however, that I am going to build a platform of cinderblocks to
start my chimney on. That way I can remove the grate and put in the new
coals, and have the whole thing done in two minutes rather than twenty.
My next experiment will probably be brisket or pulled pork. I will come back
here and discuss how they go, because, as aggravating as slow grilling was,
it was also kind of fun.
