First Smoke on the new Weber Kettle

[David Parrish]

I thought the first day of the year would be a good day for a first smoke on the new copper kettle. Up for eating this evening will be baby back ribs cooked using the Last Meal Ribs recipe. This is going to be an interesting cook as I don't have a smokenator. I did a little improvisation to set up low and slow smoking. I think it's time for some pics.

This is a Weber rack that goes on the charcoal grate and holds the charcoal off to the side.


Here I've installed the charcoal "basket". I placed my Grill Grates on the charcoal grate as well. I'm going to put the water pan on them, which should help conduct heat into the water and give me more humidity to help with smoke adhesion.


I used my last Grill Grate as a heat deflector to help set up two-zone cooking.



Added the water pan and charcoal



In this pic I had just added a chunk of apple wood. Nice and thin smoke!

[David Parrish]

OK onto the cook. I've got two racks of baby back ribs that I dry brined with salt overnight, then rubbed with modified Memphis Dust (replaced half the paprika with chili powder) this morning about 30 minutes before the cook.

I let the temp climb to 234F to compensate for the drop in temp when I open the pit to add the ribs.



Ribs are over the water/drip pan. You can see the apple chunk in the pile of charcoal (bottom of pic).


Sorry this might be hard to see but the Maverick is reading 225F. This is ten minutes after closing the lid.

[Jerod Broussard]

Show off!!!!

[Max Good]

Lookin' good!

[ISP 8-1]

Perfect so far!

[Deuce]

Nice cook going on

[The Burn]

Nicely done. How many coals to you use to get to 225 with that setup?

Another option - that I've see but not tried, since I have a smokenator too - is pushing the Vortex off to one side

[David Parrish]

Nicely done. How many coals to you use to get to 225 with that setup? Another option - that I've see but not tried, since I have a smokenator too - is pushing the Vortex off to one side

Sorry Burn I didn't count. I'm using lump charcoal anyway.

[David Parrish]

Here is a pic of the ribs 1:40 into the cook. I rotated them so each rack would get time close to the charcoal for more even cooking.

[David Parrish]

2:15 into the cook the temps are holding nicely.

[richinlbrg]

A work of art, PB! Just stunning that you got it perfectly on the first shot!

[cdd315]

So you haven't needed to add any coal at this point? I haven't done any low and slow with my kettle so I have little experience. I really like your deflector shield setup with the grill grates .. nice improve!

[W.A.]

Nice setup. I've been using 2 fire bricks side by side, but it splits it closer to half with less indirect area to put a big pan underneath.

[David Parrish]

Thanks! Yeah Grill Grates are useful for all kinds of applications.

[David Parrish]

So you haven't needed to add any coal at this point? I haven't done any low and slow with my kettle so I have little experience. I really like your deflector shield setup with the grill grates .. nice improve!

I moved the coals around back when I flipped the ribs around, then added coal just now at the three hour point.

[David Parrish]

A work of art, PB! Just stunning that you got it perfectly on the first shot!

Thanks! So far so good. Keep your fingers crossed.

[David Parrish]

Three hours in I added charcoal, hit the charcoal with a torch to warm it up, and rotated the racks again. Pit temp spiked up to 243 ten minutes after closing the lid but is slowly heading back down. I'm tweaking vents as needed of course.

[The Burn]

Semi-off topic: when you torch unlit coals, do you do it just long enough to get an edge started or do you take them farther along?

[David Parrish]

TB that's not off topic at all. I hate to say it, but the answer is I torch them just enough to hit the temp I'm looking for. In this case since it was just 225F I torched them just enough to get the edges burning... about 30 seconds.