Hi Folks,
The PBC arrived about 6 weeks ago and after all the great advice and cooks by others on the rig I thought I would add to the discussion.
First of all the PBC arrived on time and without any damage. They do a very good job of assembling the unit for shipment.
I have not used charcoal in about 30 years so I needed a charcoal lighter. After reading about the small Weber charcoal starter I decided that was what I wanted. Long story short, it took a lot of hunting to find one in stock at a store. Most of the likely suspects like Home Depot, Ace, Walmart say they carry them, but at this time of the year most are out of stock. I finally found one and it works great for the PBC. I can just get 40 briquettes in the lighter. One note to myself about this lighter is that it takes me about 20 minutes, not 15, to get the coals going. This smaller sized lighter really makes distribution of the coals into the basket easy. I have a 4 foot piece of 1/2" copper pipe to adjust any coals after that if necessary.
I opted for using two sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil to line the bottom of the barrel. Works great. The only downside of this is placement of the foil. I am on the short side so after I ruined one of my well-worn tee shirts I came up with a workable for me solution. I now fold a few sheets of newspaper over the top rim of the barrel and now no problems.
I found the best way to shape to foil before putting it in the barrel is to pre-form it on the cooking grate. Its the same diameter as opposed to the top which is larger diameter.
There has been some discussion on the forum about leaky lids on the second generation PBC's. When it is new you can spin the top around. Mine leaked a bit from the top the first few cooks, but now is seasoned well enough that it sticks a bit when I lift it up. Lid leaks are not a problem now, so if you are new to this don't be too concerned until you have some cooks completed.
So far I have cooked chicken twice and ribs, beef short ribs, and a turkey each once. All came out great. I basically followed recipes and techniques on AR. Full of flavor and moist. Mrs. Brookie is very happy.
That said, I did screw around with the temperature a lot with my third cook-beef short ribs. I was after a 225 degree temp for the cook and found that I could not maintain that temperate for any period of time. Temp dropped below 200' at least once and I had almost extinguished the fire. (And horrible bitter taste resulted at least on some of the ribs). I will not be doing this again.
A few cooks later, I now have the bottom vent adjusted where the cooker will run at a steady 260' or so with both bars in.
My last cook was a 14 lb turkey. I kept it whole and hung it on the PBC Turkey hanger threaded through one of the rebars. This was a great suggestion by one of the board members. With the rebar inserted diagonally, the unit ran at about 330' and the turkey was done in 2 hours. One of my turkey dinner guests said that it was the best turkey he had ever tasted. A lot said from a 79 year old guy. However, some alcohol was involved.
I did read the entire PBC sub forum and suggest that any one new take a good look. There is a wealth of information here. Thanks. Brookie
The PBC arrived about 6 weeks ago and after all the great advice and cooks by others on the rig I thought I would add to the discussion.
First of all the PBC arrived on time and without any damage. They do a very good job of assembling the unit for shipment.
I have not used charcoal in about 30 years so I needed a charcoal lighter. After reading about the small Weber charcoal starter I decided that was what I wanted. Long story short, it took a lot of hunting to find one in stock at a store. Most of the likely suspects like Home Depot, Ace, Walmart say they carry them, but at this time of the year most are out of stock. I finally found one and it works great for the PBC. I can just get 40 briquettes in the lighter. One note to myself about this lighter is that it takes me about 20 minutes, not 15, to get the coals going. This smaller sized lighter really makes distribution of the coals into the basket easy. I have a 4 foot piece of 1/2" copper pipe to adjust any coals after that if necessary.
I opted for using two sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil to line the bottom of the barrel. Works great. The only downside of this is placement of the foil. I am on the short side so after I ruined one of my well-worn tee shirts I came up with a workable for me solution. I now fold a few sheets of newspaper over the top rim of the barrel and now no problems.
I found the best way to shape to foil before putting it in the barrel is to pre-form it on the cooking grate. Its the same diameter as opposed to the top which is larger diameter.
There has been some discussion on the forum about leaky lids on the second generation PBC's. When it is new you can spin the top around. Mine leaked a bit from the top the first few cooks, but now is seasoned well enough that it sticks a bit when I lift it up. Lid leaks are not a problem now, so if you are new to this don't be too concerned until you have some cooks completed.
So far I have cooked chicken twice and ribs, beef short ribs, and a turkey each once. All came out great. I basically followed recipes and techniques on AR. Full of flavor and moist. Mrs. Brookie is very happy.
That said, I did screw around with the temperature a lot with my third cook-beef short ribs. I was after a 225 degree temp for the cook and found that I could not maintain that temperate for any period of time. Temp dropped below 200' at least once and I had almost extinguished the fire. (And horrible bitter taste resulted at least on some of the ribs). I will not be doing this again.
A few cooks later, I now have the bottom vent adjusted where the cooker will run at a steady 260' or so with both bars in.
My last cook was a 14 lb turkey. I kept it whole and hung it on the PBC Turkey hanger threaded through one of the rebars. This was a great suggestion by one of the board members. With the rebar inserted diagonally, the unit ran at about 330' and the turkey was done in 2 hours. One of my turkey dinner guests said that it was the best turkey he had ever tasted. A lot said from a 79 year old guy. However, some alcohol was involved.
I did read the entire PBC sub forum and suggest that any one new take a good look. There is a wealth of information here. Thanks. Brookie
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