Been a couple of weeks since the actual cook, but haven't had time to post. I volunteered to show off the new toy and cook for 10. I loaded up the PBC - all 8 hooks! 4 racks of St Louis ribs and 2 split chickens.
The ribs were all rubbed with MMD, no sauce, and the chix were dry brined for 24 hours, then rubbed with Simon and Garfunkel.
Pit temp monitoring was just making me nervous - the probe was all over the place, mostly around 250 which felt too low to me. When I cracked the lid, the probe showed the temp dropping, so it was probably user error. Of course, that made me more nervous. Then, when we had to scoot the barrel over a few feet (while lit!!) to get it out of the kids' way, the temp spiked to 400, and I had to plug the rebar holes with foil.
The worst part was the pool of grease that started dripping out of the bottom. When I noticed it, I lay some paper towels on top of foil, but it was quite a lot! I later called PBC and asked them about it. They told me that when you have a full cooker, that hasn't been properly gunked up yet, with a lot of drippings, it's not unusual to have a leak. Once it gunks up, it should stop.
Anyhow, all that worrying, and dinner came out great. The ribs were the best I have ever eaten. Like, holy moly! The chicken was moist and smoky and fantastic. Skin, again, was a little disappointing, but I know it's hard to get amazing skin on the PBC, especially when cooking it with other stuff.
The ribs were all rubbed with MMD, no sauce, and the chix were dry brined for 24 hours, then rubbed with Simon and Garfunkel.
Pit temp monitoring was just making me nervous - the probe was all over the place, mostly around 250 which felt too low to me. When I cracked the lid, the probe showed the temp dropping, so it was probably user error. Of course, that made me more nervous. Then, when we had to scoot the barrel over a few feet (while lit!!) to get it out of the kids' way, the temp spiked to 400, and I had to plug the rebar holes with foil.
The worst part was the pool of grease that started dripping out of the bottom. When I noticed it, I lay some paper towels on top of foil, but it was quite a lot! I later called PBC and asked them about it. They told me that when you have a full cooker, that hasn't been properly gunked up yet, with a lot of drippings, it's not unusual to have a leak. Once it gunks up, it should stop.
Anyhow, all that worrying, and dinner came out great. The ribs were the best I have ever eaten. Like, holy moly! The chicken was moist and smoky and fantastic. Skin, again, was a little disappointing, but I know it's hard to get amazing skin on the PBC, especially when cooking it with other stuff.
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