After reading about the success many are having with B&B charcoal, I ordered a bag of briquettes and "char-logs". Here at the end of the road we are closer to Havana, Cuba than a Walmart or other such store. The local Ace Hardware here is very small and does not stock items like this. I ordered them and had them delivered to the store.
I wanted to do something different, I've getting pretty tired of pork butts. (I know Blasphemy) I WANTED to do a brisket, but the lack of brisket in the Florida Keys made that plan go out the window. I ended up with spare ribs and beef short ribs. I seasoned ribs with my normal rub, a modified version of Memphis Dust. The Short Ribs I did with just salt, pepper and garlic powder.
I normally use Kingsford so the B&B is new me. I was looking for about a 6 hour burn at 225 - 250. about 4 hours for the pork and 6 hours for the beef. My set up was about 50/50 mix of char-logs and briquettes. The logs and my wood chunks went in the basket first then the smaller briquettes. Used one starter and only filled about 3/4 full. Lit it off and it took about 30 min before i was comfortable putting the defector on and then another 15 min to come up to temperature. The meat went on and for the next 30 min the temperature hung at about 225. It then shot up ot 350. I adjusted air flow and opened the top for about 30 seconds to cool things off. Checked temp again in 15 min and temp was down to 225. over the next hour it crept back up to 300. Made minor adjustment and got it back down to 250 range. At the 3.5 hour mark I checked the meat. Pork ribs were perfect, I started the "spritz" on the short ribs. 30-45 min for the next 2 hours they got spritzed with apple juice and apple cider vinegar mixture. Unfortunately the last 1/2 I had a conference call that went long and the short ribs stayed on a bit longer than I wanted. Not a fail...just next time need to pay more attention at the end.
The fire temp was still, I didn't want to waste the heat, so I had a package of chicken thighs in the fridge. I quickly seasoned them and tossed them on the now empty grate. About 1 hour later the temperature stated to fall back to about 200. I opened vents up all the way and temp came back up a bit. after 2 hours the fire was failing, unfortunately the thighs were not quite done, 15 min in the oven at 300 finished them off.
I am happy with the B&B so far, much less "bad smoke" flavor. The burn was defiantly longer. Not sure about my fluctuations in temperature and the start time. My issues may have been operator error. I'll try something again next week and see how it goes.
PS Ribs were paired with an ice cold Red Stripe beer. No PBR here, we are on island time!
I wanted to do something different, I've getting pretty tired of pork butts. (I know Blasphemy) I WANTED to do a brisket, but the lack of brisket in the Florida Keys made that plan go out the window. I ended up with spare ribs and beef short ribs. I seasoned ribs with my normal rub, a modified version of Memphis Dust. The Short Ribs I did with just salt, pepper and garlic powder.
I normally use Kingsford so the B&B is new me. I was looking for about a 6 hour burn at 225 - 250. about 4 hours for the pork and 6 hours for the beef. My set up was about 50/50 mix of char-logs and briquettes. The logs and my wood chunks went in the basket first then the smaller briquettes. Used one starter and only filled about 3/4 full. Lit it off and it took about 30 min before i was comfortable putting the defector on and then another 15 min to come up to temperature. The meat went on and for the next 30 min the temperature hung at about 225. It then shot up ot 350. I adjusted air flow and opened the top for about 30 seconds to cool things off. Checked temp again in 15 min and temp was down to 225. over the next hour it crept back up to 300. Made minor adjustment and got it back down to 250 range. At the 3.5 hour mark I checked the meat. Pork ribs were perfect, I started the "spritz" on the short ribs. 30-45 min for the next 2 hours they got spritzed with apple juice and apple cider vinegar mixture. Unfortunately the last 1/2 I had a conference call that went long and the short ribs stayed on a bit longer than I wanted. Not a fail...just next time need to pay more attention at the end.
The fire temp was still, I didn't want to waste the heat, so I had a package of chicken thighs in the fridge. I quickly seasoned them and tossed them on the now empty grate. About 1 hour later the temperature stated to fall back to about 200. I opened vents up all the way and temp came back up a bit. after 2 hours the fire was failing, unfortunately the thighs were not quite done, 15 min in the oven at 300 finished them off.
I am happy with the B&B so far, much less "bad smoke" flavor. The burn was defiantly longer. Not sure about my fluctuations in temperature and the start time. My issues may have been operator error. I'll try something again next week and see how it goes.
PS Ribs were paired with an ice cold Red Stripe beer. No PBR here, we are on island time!
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