Finally got a chance to fire up the PBJr. I tried a dry run last night and the results were... discouraging. Really high temps, white smoke for 45 minutes , just really into "Aw, jeez. Is this thing even going to work?" territory.
Whatever. Charcoal's cheap And I was just sitting by the fire pit anyway. And I had a chicken that I'd prepped to cook tonight, and that puppies getting cooked one way or another.
So, of course it's raining. Whatever. Onward!
After a quick reconfiguration of the Pit area due to the rain we're gonna get this fired up.
I filled the basket with KBB, counted out how many briquettes that was (70, probably get 80 in if you were feeling ambitious), pulled 20 out & lit them in the chimney. Spread the lit coals on top of the basket, got it in the barrel, and let it burn for 5 minutes with the lid off and both rebars in. Hung the chicken, connected the food probe, got the lid on and watched the temp settle in. At 200. But the food temp is going up like I'd expect it to in the weber at 325, so what the heck is going on here?
Turns out I must have managed to catch the wire for the pit probe when I hung one half of the chicken and didn't notice with the poor light and the smoke so the probe was kind of caught between the chicken and the side of the barrel and touching the side. So not a good reading on pit temp at all.Cracked the lid to try and get the temp up, temp went down. Pulled a rebar, temp went up and then down and then up. but the food temp is moving just like I expect, so we're good, right?
Well, yes. Yes we are indeed:
Sweet Baby Jesus. That's good chicken. Ended up perfectly cooked, juicy as a very juicy thing, and great flavor.
We devoured half of it just standing in the kitchen:
I still need to figure the PBJr. out, since this cook was a bit of a mess, but I may never do another chicken on the Weber again. And I have turned out fantastic chickens on the Weber.
Whatever. Charcoal's cheap And I was just sitting by the fire pit anyway. And I had a chicken that I'd prepped to cook tonight, and that puppies getting cooked one way or another.
So, of course it's raining. Whatever. Onward!
After a quick reconfiguration of the Pit area due to the rain we're gonna get this fired up.
I filled the basket with KBB, counted out how many briquettes that was (70, probably get 80 in if you were feeling ambitious), pulled 20 out & lit them in the chimney. Spread the lit coals on top of the basket, got it in the barrel, and let it burn for 5 minutes with the lid off and both rebars in. Hung the chicken, connected the food probe, got the lid on and watched the temp settle in. At 200. But the food temp is going up like I'd expect it to in the weber at 325, so what the heck is going on here?
Turns out I must have managed to catch the wire for the pit probe when I hung one half of the chicken and didn't notice with the poor light and the smoke so the probe was kind of caught between the chicken and the side of the barrel and touching the side. So not a good reading on pit temp at all.Cracked the lid to try and get the temp up, temp went down. Pulled a rebar, temp went up and then down and then up. but the food temp is moving just like I expect, so we're good, right?
Well, yes. Yes we are indeed:
Sweet Baby Jesus. That's good chicken. Ended up perfectly cooked, juicy as a very juicy thing, and great flavor.
We devoured half of it just standing in the kitchen:
I still need to figure the PBJr. out, since this cook was a bit of a mess, but I may never do another chicken on the Weber again. And I have turned out fantastic chickens on the Weber.
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