Ever have your ribs catch fire?

[Finster]

Did 2 racks of st Louis ribs yesterday on the PBC.
Used 2 different rubs, so one rack I left whole, the other I cut in half so I would remember which was which. Near the end of the cook, I had the lid off for a few minutes while I checked temps. The added air caused a flare up which got high enough to reach the long rack of ribs.
When I lifted the ribs to get them away from the flames, I realized that the ribs themselves had caught fire...lol.
No pics, but needless to say, the one end of the ribs was pretty charred.
Anyone else ever have this happen?

[Jerod Broussard]

Nope, but I did singe my eyebrows lifting a brisket out the barrel wrapped in butcher paper. Turns out butcher paper DOES hold in grease and it WILL pour out when tilted.

[Panhead John]

I can tell by your profile pic. You really should switch eyes.

[Troutman]

He can’t he’s a cyclops 🤣

[MBMorgan]

When you remove the PBC lid, you're turning that little barrel into a pretty decent chimney. It will flare up very quickly unless you're able to rapidly get it sealed again. It's the nature of the beast ...

[Soonerpop]

Yikes! Be careful out there!

[tbob4]

A buddy of mine who passed away last year from cancer gave me one of my best BBQ memories about 3 years ago. He bought a PBC knock off and had tasted my turkey before. He wanted to replicate it for his family and brought the barrel to my house for a practice run. I AM the BBQ guru, after all. We weren’t worried about seasonings. I studied lots of posts here, so I knew what I was doing. We just were testing time and temp. We got the bird going and after about 1/2 hr of real fidgeting with the lid we had a good hot fire. Then we started to smell something a bit foul (pun intended). I cracked the lid and flames were shooting up from the bird. We both fell back onto my porch, laughing hysterically. It took a bit to get the hose because we just couldn’t stop laughing. He ended up baking the turkey for Thanksgiving.

[Finster]

Yikes! Be careful out there!

I know, right

[realdocBBQ]

I won't do wings on my Yoder anymore - caught on fire on two separate occasions. Really disappointing. Matter of fact, I've shied away from anything HOT on my Yoder since.

[Spinaker]

Like others have said, as soon as that lid is cracked, you basically have a charcoal chimney with grease added. If you need to access the meat, pull it out of the barrel and work on it on a table next to the pit. (I always set up a folding table next to my PBCs.)

Even with the lid cracked, you can run the risk of a flare up. Let's break this down for a few lines......you have a fire that is restricted by a damper on the bottom and by four holes, partially plugged with rebar, at the top. Once you open that lid, an enormous amount of air floods into the cooking chamber and that feeds that fire. So with that lid being taken off, you are multiplying the amount of available oxygen by many, many times over......and boom you have a flare up, or worse.....a grease fire.

As long as you are fairly quick with the lid, you really have nothing to worry about, but you gotta be kinda quick.

[HawkerXP]

+1

[Soonerpop]

Yep

[HawkerXP]

Happened with me during a turkey cook. We need to be quick with getting that lid back on.

[HawkerXP]

No food was damaged during above inferno. I pulled the turkey and ran it inside leaving the lid off.

[Spinaker]

Cyaaaaa!

[bbqLuv]

Another reason for a Traeger Pellet grill, I only get grease fires. LOL
Lazy, clean grill I did not

[shify]

Yup, but not the way you are thinking about it. I split my racks in half in the PBC and in my last cook, right before I hit the four hour mark and about 5-10 min before I was planning on checking on them, one of my half racks slid completely off the cook and was turning into charcoal in the basket. Oddly enough the other five half racks were not overcooked and were perfectly tender but not fall off the bone, but you better believe I was handling the rest of the ribs like they were plutonium rods when taking them off the rebar

It was my first sacrifice to the PBCgods. I used to daisy chain when I cooked full racks but never bothered for half racks but now will have to reconsider that position

[Troutman]

Just another reason to switch from a PBC to a WSM with it's built in fire extinguishing system. With the WSM you get this;

...but with the PBC you are in danger of that.....

Your choice, choose wisely grasshopper !!!

[HawkerXP]

LoL!

[bbqLuv]

A little close to the house for SH!T on a shingle.

[Santamarina]

That’s probably the #1 reason I haven’t bought a PBC yet…the second reason being my fear that the food will fall in the fire.

[bbqLuv]

I thought everyone want a little char on their meat.
I could be wrong.

[Santamarina]

bbqLuv TBH it’s not actually the fire that scares me - char is good! - it’s falling in a pile of ash that concerns me!

[bbqLuv]

Santgamarina
Have you not heard of Cave Man BBQing? It's grill less!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lannK14WCOU

[MarkN]

While I have heard all these stories about taking off the lid and temperatures going wild, I have not managed to duplicate that myself. This past weekend I did a rack of ribs in my PBC. The temp stayed in the 265-285 range for three hours. Ribs were not done and the temp started to drop and got as low as 230 degrees. I removed the lid for a couple of minutes and while there were some flames, when I put the lid back on it settled in at 235 degrees for the rest of the cook. Maybe I don't use enough charcoal (although I "fill the basket") or I spread them out too much.

Anyway, the ribs closest to the fire got crispy but not burnt (I like them crispy yet juicy so always consider the lowest two bones the "Chef's Sample").

[bbqLuv]

Keep trying I'm sure you will get the hang of it.

[bbqLuv]

Ah yes, the old slogan, "Burn Baby Burn" lives on.