*****Official BBQ Thread - Suns out, Buns out!*****

PlacidCasual said:
@dl8860 Thx for the advice I'll bear that in mind.
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Just put some beef short ribs on now, tried to wait for temp to get as high as possible before putting them on but couldn't really get past 120C, so have whacked them on. Guys with the newer version, which has the bottom vents further towards the bottom, do you have any issues getting past 120C? I know plenty of people with the old version I have have the same issues, wondering how effective the change has been.
 
dl8860 said:
Just put some beef short ribs on now, tried to wait for temp to get as high as possible before putting them on but couldn't really get past 120C, so have whacked them on. Guys with the newer version, which has the bottom vents further towards the bottom, do you have any issues getting past 120C? I know plenty of people with the old version I have have the same issues, wondering how effective the change has been.
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Do you have water in there? That will limit the temperature to around that point.
 
dl8860 said:
I put a bit of near boiling water in yeah. Good point, maybe I should get some sand? Now at 100C after almost an hour. Still OK to cook but would like to be a tad hotter.
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Sand (cover with foil so you don't get meat juice in it) or similar is a better choice yeah. The nice thing about water is that it makes it very hard to go 'too' hot for most low and slow so it's good for beginners. However, you have to top it up regularly and you'll probably burn more fuel as actually you're giving it enough air that it's burning really hot - and then the air is cooled by the evaporation of the water. If you use something like sand or ceramics you'll need to learn to control the temperature a little better but the end result is that you'll have to babysit it far less with regards to topping up the water or adding extra fuel.
 
Cheers French, will try that next time. For now, the stall is real. An hour and a half ago I was at 157F internal temp. Now I'm at 151F. This is will bbq temps between 210F and 220F. I know to expect a stall, but to lose temperature like that when bbq temps are good, is really frustrating. Just got to be patient I guess! I have vents fully open and put more coals on, can't really get any higher than 225F, or I would.
 
dl8860 said:
Cheers French, will try that next time. For now, the stall is real. An hour and a half ago I was at 157F internal temp. Now I'm at 151F. This is will bbq temps between 210F and 220F. I know to expect a stall, but to lose temperature like that when bbq temps are good, is really frustrating. Just got to be patient I guess! I have vents fully open and put more coals on, can't really get any higher than 225F, or I would.
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Don't try to push the temp even higher or 'power' though the stall. It's just something you need to accept will happen and eventually it'll get through it without any additional help. It is frustrating though. I think the first few times I encountered it despite knowing what to expect in theory I still was convinced something must be wrong and the BBQ was under temp or something.
 
For sure, not going to go above 250F. Which apparently is a sensible temp anyway for beef ribs, I was down at 210F as that was hottest I could get before putting a foil ring around the top of my charcoal basket to alter the airflow. Sitting nicely at 235F now, and internal temp up to 153F. Going to eat some chicken and have a beer to take my mind off it, shame about the weather though.
 
So after 9 hours on the callow the beef ribs got to 195F, and I called it a day. It was going up by about 1 degree every 15 minutes and it was time to eat. Was originally planning to eat at lunchtime as I read 5 hours was average for short ribs.

I split the rack of 5 into two twos and a one, and put one of the twos on the lower level, and one two and the one on the top level.

The bit on the lower level was a little tougher than the others, so I think the top of the smoker probably is a bit hotter. Would be nice to have two meat probes but there we go.

Pretrim


Trimmed, probably would have taken a little more off in hindsight


Getting a bit excited by this point


Separated and rubbed. I used meathead's big bad beef rub. I'll use half the chili powder next time as it was pretty spicy, and that's not generally what I'm after with BBQ.


This is after about 3 hours. Gave them a spritz with water at 3 and 5 hours.


And this is about 9 hours.


Made mac n' cheese according to recipe on amazingribs.com, pretty indulgent stuff and an amazing accompaniment


Plated


Bark porn


This is the first time I've achieved proper bark, and it was amazing. The ribs cooked on the lower rack were a little tough (which I think is because internal temp was probably more like 185F, despite a full 9 hours at an average of 225F), but other than that it was amazing. Definitely worth the time and effort.
 
Short ribs rock, nice smoke ring too! I always wrap mine as I've had a couple things take forever when I haven't.

As the weather was good, I fired up the WSM and made pork belly burnt ends. I figured I might as well throw on some ribs too seeing as I had the extra space. The burnt ends were fantastic, definitely something I'll do again.

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So my first go with the Callow vertical smoker this weekend. Nice piece of kit, I can see why it's so cheap they saved on about a hours assembly, it's a right fiddly bugger to get all those little screws in.

I started it with a cheap chimney starter then poured in the coals when they were nice and hot, added the water (cold) and let it run for about 45 minutes coming up to temperature then threw on a 3 kilo piece of shoulder bone out that I'd butterfly cut slightly to thin it out. Now there was a breeze all day and in hindsight I might have chosen a more sheltered location. I only had the in built thermometer to go by but I struggled to keep the temperature at 100°C often hovering around 85-95°C. Over the course of the day I tried different air combination and some worked better than others but none really successful. I was using lumpwood charcoal but it was quite bitty and I'm concerned that the air paths weren't that great through the pile. I might try briquettes next time. The pork was rubbed in a mix of sugars, salt, paprika and garlic powder. It coloured up very nicely and even developed a bit of crust. After about 6 hours never reaching 100°C consistently I decided to finish in the oven at 120°C for an hour and basted with a basic barbecue sauce of tomato puree, English mustard, some left over rub and a little a additional paprika. This coloured beautifully and I was very happy with the result, I doubt it was perfect but it was still very enjoyable, there was the nice purple tinge to the meat inside the crust and the meat was still very moist.

Sadly no photos I don't have an appropriate hosting account.

So I need to improve the heating for next time and I think I'll buy an inexpensive barbecue thermometer from Amazon for meat and ambient measurement.
 
@PlacidCasual Sounds like a good first go. The built in thermometer is notoriously bad though. I have the first version, and mine shows something like 70C when in fact it's 100C. You probably have the new version which I've heard is better but still bad. So a proper digital thermometer is a must.

If you really were struggling to get above 100C however, did you try the ring of foil trick around the rim of the charcoal basket? Works wonders for me.

Oh and a breeze should actually bring your temps up, not down, as it increases air flow which should fire your coals up.

@Street Wow the burnt ends look great. Very jealous of your WSM square footage! Which size is it? And you are right about wrapping, I think I'll definitely do that next time. I just though as I had time that I'd stick it out the traditional way, but it's definitely the right call to speed things up a bit. I think 200F is needed for these sorts of cuts.
 
It's the 57cm one, I was torn between that and the smaller one but I'm glad I went big! It's so nice not having to squash things on. :D I learnt the hard way about wrapping when doing a pork butt once and I'd ran out of foil. It hit the stall and just wouldn't move for hours. I ended up having to take it off and stick it in the oven over night to get it up to temperature.
 
Yeah my stall with those ribs was crazy, like nothing I've had before. Good job I was aiming to eat them for lunch with supper as a fall back, otherwise it'd be ribs for breakfast the following day.
 
dl8860 said:
Good job I was aiming to eat them for lunch with supper as a fall back, otherwise it'd be ribs for breakfast the following day.
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Haha, I've had a few of those where it's getting late and the missus is moaning she's hungry. Luckily my pork butt mishap was just for pulling and freezing so I didn't get any ear ache!

PlacidCasual said:
@dl8860 I'm not sure what the foil trick is I'm afraid. I'll have to find myself a dedicated BBQ smoker forum and widen my knowledge.
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The Country Wood Smoke Facebook group is worth joining.
 
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