Snake in the PBC?

[MarkN]

I made a rack of Beef Plate Ribs only once before, and it was by following a recipe for a Weber charcoal grill that was in Cook's Country magazine. It used a charcoal snake and it turned out fine.

Today I wanted to try it again only on my PBC. The recipe on their website is drastically different than the Texas-Style Beef Rib recipe here on AmazingRibs. What to do? I was successful with the snake once, maybe I go to it again.

I did some searches here and found a handful of posts that amounted to "I wonder if it would work" but I could not find one that said "I tried it and here's what happened". Well, I tried it and here's what happened.

I dry brined it with Kosher salt for about 20+ hours in the fridge. Added my homemade mixture of Meathead's Big Bad Beef rub and that was pretty much it.

I started with a snake in the basket and about 20 KBB briquettes in the chimney. Dumped the lit coals on one end of the snake, added two chunks of hickory and with the usual PBC lighting method I hung the meat when the temp reached 225⁰F. I monitored the temp as I went and it stayed between 230-250 for about 4 hours. Something new for me with a PBC that usually runs hotter.

I will tweak a few things for next time, but see no reason not to try this again. I suppose there is some drawback to not having all the charcoal lit across the basket to have the drippings hit hot coals, but I was very satisfied with the results.

The Snake


The meat with fat and silverskin removed.



The cook (about four hours into it).



The results.

[KuKuPuffs]

Wow the end results look amazing. What’s the purpose of the snake coals like that? Prevent the fat drippings from smothering the coals?

[MarkN]

You light the coals on one end of the snake and it burns its way around to the other end. Fewer coals are burning at any one time so the temperature is lower and it is more of a controlled burn. It seemed to work here as my PBC generally runs at 275-300 but it stayed in the 230-250 range and was still going after 6 hours. And if the temp started to drop, its pretty easy to just add more coals to the end of the burn.

[HawkerXP]

PBC, PBC, PBC!

[HawkerXP]

oops thought you said "snake in the basket".

[Waster]

What a pain in the asp

[lumbrjk]

I started reading thinking this might be the story of a slithering snake in your PBC! I found one in between my Traeger and cover once….

[RiverJeff]

Great looking Ribs!!
Just makes me think more and more to add PBC to my arsenal.

[Greygoose]

LOL

[Michael_in_TX]

You beat me to this.

[fzxdoc]

Snakes in the PBC, the sequel to Snakes on a Plane! Yikes!

I honestly didn't think of the charcoal layout when I read the title of this topic. I thought you had opened your PBC to find a slithery visitor had taken up residence there.

Thank you for writing up your experience with using the snake charcoal method in the PBC. Very informative. It's always fun to try something new, time permitting, with a cooker.

Congrats on turning out such great-looking beef ribs. I bet they were delicious.

Kathryn

[BBQ Wiz]

Soonerpop always snake the jelly on your PBJ. Makes it easier to smear on the bread...

[Steve R.]

Soonerpop , the melting jelly dripping on the coals really takes it to another level.

[FireMan]

Hey, maybe it will be stinky but taste good.

[fzxdoc]

So, MarkN , based on your results from this cook, what would you say there are advantages to using the snake layout vs. the conventional PBC lighting (modified minion) method? I'm curious.

Kathryn

[MarkN]

About the only difference was the temp with the snake stayed in the 230-250 range as opposed to what I normally get which is 275-300.

[DennyWoo]

Thanks for the write-up. I may have to try this out for a rib cook. I noticed that you had your basket right up on a side wall rather than centered. Do you always do that?

[MarkN]

I think that's an optical illusion or a trick of the shadows and my photography. It was centered as best I could get it.

[rlozinak]

Nice rib cook!

[texastweeter]

Good cook. Not gonna lie, thought you had smoked a buzzworm. I usually fry them.

[Donw]

My first thought too, People who visit often wonder why I keep a snake stick hanging by the backdoor. Usually if they stay a few days they understand why.

[texastweeter]

Especially at night on a oil road. The canebreak rattlers and copperheads love that retained heat

[Alan Brice]

Interesting, I usually do wibs on the kettle. I have a source for beef wibs at $2.99 and they are fantastic.
gonna be doing more of this thanks.

[Finster]

Interesting.
I actually happened to come across something yesterday that's pretty similar, only done in a weber smokey Mountain...
clock method using fire bricks..

https://youtube.com/shorts/bEhiPktI9iE?feature=share4

[Steve R.]

That's how I used to run my WSM for awhile until I began to trust that the Minion method actually works. I thought I invented it. 😄

[MarkN]

Yeah, that looks like the same idea. May try that next time.

[Steve B]

Great looking cook and write up.

How long was the overall cook? And how much charcoal did you have left over?

[MarkN]

Let's see. I hung the meat at 11:15 AM and it hit an internal temp of 203 at about 5:45 PM. 6-1/2 hours total. I used up all the charcoal I started with and added about 12-15 more to get it over the hump.

[Steve B]

Cool. Thanks for the info Mark

[mrichie1229]

Looks delicious MarkN!

[Spinaker]

Here is how I used to do it. I would get great burns with this set up. Honestly, now, I just dump the charcoal in. This did work really well though.

[BBQ Wiz]

From a smoker point of view... Looks very sery sexy. question is whether the end results justify the extra effort. Anyone have answer?

[Spinaker]

I mean, it works very well. Worth the trouble, IDK. It really only takes about 5 mins to set it up. On long cooks, it is worth it to me. BBQ Wiz

[Soonerpop]

I do this on Junior for long cooks due to the small charcoal basket. Works good.