4th weekend: Reflections on Weber Kettle 1st use

[jjdbike]

Hey gang,

Hope all enjoyed a safe and relaxing weekend.


Got a used older premium 22". I replaced the grill w/ Weber double hinged. I ordered two Weber charcoal baskets. Added two thermometers, one on top - middle, one a little off to side just above grill level. Added lockable hinge & gasket. Sealed drilled holes w/ high heat engine gasket material. Touched up nicks and worn spots.

I used it for 1st time Sunday 7/03. I used two charcoal baskets pushed together in middle. Used lit fully combusting briquettes to fill baskets 3/4 and added unlit to opposite sides. Used Cherry chunks for added smoke & color. Both vents fully opened. Cooked marinated prime hanger steak, shrimp and cod for fajitas. Came out wonderful. I waited till smoke was clean and clear blue. One complaint was, not quite enough smoke. Watched video by Jeromy Yoder saying that keeping smoke clean can go too far and not impart enough smoke flavor.

Monday I grilled corn, wings (herbed, buffalo and barbecue), smoked cheddar sausage, and pineapple slices. This time I skipped the baskets and just dumped a full chimney of fully lit stacked briquettes in middle (played Jenga), surrounded by a ring of unlit coals. This time I used combo of apple and cherry and used dirtier smoke. The increased volume of fuel made grill much hotter. Once up to full temp, even w/ rotating and keeping as far out on the parameter as I could, I could only leave wings on for 20 - 30 mins before they started getting too charred. Obviously I used too much fuel. Then I finished in oven. Everything came out well.

Reflection on Weber Kettle, as compared to BGE: Very straight forward and easy to use. It's also easy to clean w/ the ash basket underneath and the duel purpose vent - cleaning fins. Obviously, amount of engaged fuel has huge impact on heat. I like the increased air flow over the BGE. Now I know I need to pay close attention to amount of lit fuel on kettle. I like smaller hotter fire, w/ vents fully open, w/ hot and cooler zones. I love how light and portable it is, as compared w/ the BGE. It seems like the perfect complement to my KBQ stick burner.

I'm looking forward to getting much use out of it this summer. Thanks for all the help.

Best regards!

JD

[jfmorris]

Great to hear your first impressions of the Weber kettle are positive!

I have both a kamado and a kettle (Performer Deluxe) and one thing I will mention is that it is much faster to get the kettle ready to cook and up to temperature than it is the kamado. At least it seems that way to me.

What I would as far as prepping for direct grilling on the kettle is light a chimney of charcoal, let it go until the top of the chimney is on fire, but I do NOT wait for the coals to all ash over. Once the top is in flames, I dump the chimney in the kettle. And if I want to extend the cooking time, I first put a bed of UNLIT charcoal on the charcoal grate, then dump the lit coals on top of that, and spread it out evenly with my charcoal rake.

Also, consider doing a 2 zone setup, with just half of the charcoal grate with coals, the other half without. That way you have a "cooler" indirect zone to shuffle wings, burgers, into, in order to avoid scorching things with too much heat.

I will be honest and say that while I've used kettles for many years, the past 5-6 years, I've almost exclusively been using it with either the SNS or the Vortex in there to hold the charcoal. The exception is if I want a full grill 1 zone setup, so that I can use the entire cooking grate, in which I dump all the coals on the charcoal grate, as documented above, and THEN I put a set of Grillgrates over the cooking grate:

https://www.grillgrate.com/products/...-weber-kettle/

They are basically extruded anodized aluminum grates that sit on top of the regular cooking grates, and they have holes to let heat through, and fat drip down, but they also even out the heat and block flareups. I was lucky in that when I bought my Weber Performer Deluxe used for $100 in 2017, the guy threw these in with it. It lets me use the full cooking space for chicken, burgers, whatever. For burgers, I flip them over and use the flat side to do smash burgers.

These pictures show what I mean.

A mess of leg quarters, direct grilled with the charcoal mostly in the center of the cooking grate. You can see a grease flareup UNDER the grate, but it doesn't make it through the grate to the food.



And after the chicken was done, some sausage on the same grates with the coal that was left... this photo shows what the grates look like a little better.

[Bad Hat BBQ]

Man the looks GOOOD

[Richard Chrz]

It almost seems wrong when someone has more then one grill, and does not have a kettle. Glad you enjoyed yours, and thank you for sharing,

[TripleB]

Buy a Vortex and you'll love it even more.