DougBlog

Here’s a step-by-step tour through the first big cook.

I bought 2 packs of pork spares for this cook, one each from two different locations of the same supermarket chain. One was labeled as “previously frozen”, but they looked good, and the price was right ($2.39/lb.), so I decided to try them. The second pack was fresh, and had a sell-by date 3 days away. Even so, they were labeled “Manager’s Special 25% Off”. This made them $1.87/lb. Having worked in grocery for a brief period, I know stores routinely mark down overstock meat well in advance of its sell-by date. Stop by your favorite supermarket’s meat department every day for a week, and you’ll find some great deals for your effort. Be ready to use or freeze what you get, though.

If you look closely at the picture above, you can see the top slab after I trimmed it, and removed the membrane. The second slab, nearer the camera, came with the skirt meat and membrane already removed. The skirt meat was not in the package, but the trimmed sternum meat was. Just shows the variation you can expect, even from the same company.

Both slabs had an excess of end meat that needed to be trimmed. Leaving it on would only result in dry, over-cooked ends. Separate, it will cook faster, and the cooker (me) can have a little taste treat before the end of the cook. This pic shows the trimmed slab, and the sternum meat that was included in the pack is at center right.

Here are the two slabs after being smeared with mustard and then nicely coated with my homemade rub. I will rub them again tomorrow, just before cooking.

To save space in the fridge, I rolled the two slabs up and placed them in a large plastic bowl. All the trimmings and skirt meat, which were also coated with rub, were placed in the middle of the rolled ribs. I covered the bowl with plastic wrap, and then secured the wrap with foil.

It’s very important, after handling any raw meat, to clean up the prep area, cutting board, and utensils with plenty of soap and hot water.

Tomorrow, on to the cook!

At 10:30am, I lit a chimney full of charcoal. I’m trying to get an earlier start this week, so that the meat will be done right at supper time.

At 11:10am, The chimney is ready, so I poured it into the charcoal ring, and added enough unlit charcoal to fill the ring about 3/4ths full. I used 2 chunks of hickory and a chunk of peach wood for this cook.

At 11:35am, with the coals burning well, I assembled the cooker and filled the water pan. To the middle grate, I added a fresh turkey breast that I purchased at the last minute, plus the various pieces of rib tips and skirt meat. I prepared the turkey by slipping my fingers between the skin and meat, and then pouring some rub into the pocket created. You can see the water pan, wrapped in foil, below the grate.

On the top grate, I put the two slabs of ribs, in a rib rack, and the remaining trimmings. In my hurry to get the cooker closed up, I failed to photograph the ribs going on the top grate, so this pic is from a little ways into the cook.

The initial temperature of the cooker was 287�F, so I closed all 3 bottom vents to slow the fire. By 11:55am, it was down to 260, and, by 12:10pm, it was down to 239. I cracked open one bottom vent to try to maintain 240.

By 12:20, it had risen to 249�F, and the next two hours proved to be a battle to keep the temperature down. Even with all bottom vents closed, it ran about 10� hotter than I wanted for about an hour.

At 2:30pm, three hours into the cook, I turned the ribs, basted with apple cider vinegar, and added a pound of fresh choriso sausage. The turkey registered 154�F internal temp at this point. I should have removed the skirt and end tips here. They ended up overdone. I can always chop them up for jambalaya, though.

From 2:45pm to 3:15pm, the temperature was right where I wanted, but, for some reason, started climbing up to 260, and would not come down, even with all bottom vents closed. At 4:00pm, the tear test indicated the ribs were pretty much done. The sausages had reached 170� internal temp, and were done. The turkey breast was at 165�F internal, and, since it’s all white meat, was done– it’s the dark meat that needs to go all the way up to 180�F. I removed everything but the ribs, brushed the finishing sauce on them, and let them stay in the cooker an additional fifteen minutes.

By this time, it was 4:30pm, and my cook was done an hour earlier than planned. Those couple of periods of higher than desired temperatures had sped things up considerably. So, to put things on hold until later, I wrapped everything in heavy aluminum foil, and placed it all, wrapped in a large towel, in an ice chest. Ninety minutes later, it was still hot, and ready to enjoy.

What have we learned? I guess I would have to say expect the unexpected. Sometimes the BBQ gods throw you a curve and you just have to deal with it. Ten degrees too hot doesn’t mean you get bad BBQ, it just means you get to eat it a little sooner. The turkey was tender and juicy, and I think I’ll do a whole one for Thanksgiving. The ribs were fine. The only thing I would have done differently would be to remove the skirt and end meats earlier, and perhaps the sausages at about 160�F. Next time, I will reduce the amount of charcoal to see if that gives me better temperature control.

I used my Foodsaver� vacuum sealer on the leftovers, of which there were many. This was still an experimental cook, and, since I know smoked meats freeze well if properly packaged, I didn’t mind.

After the Bullet cooled— closing all the vents extinguishes the coals– I reclaimed the unburnt charcoal for next time, and dumped the remaining ashes into a galvanized metal bucket, for later disposal.

For cleanup, I’ve developed a method: I soak the grates and rib rack in very hot water in the laundry sink for about an hour. A stiff vegetable brush removes the loosened gunk, and a grill scrubber pad brightens them back up. Then towel dry. The water pan is easy because it’s wrapped in heavy foil inside and out– the extra-wide foil is just wide enough for the Bullet water pan. I also use a couple of damp paper towels to wipe grease from the bottom lip of the dome lid, and from the top rim of the cooking section.

Next time, a smaller cook.

Barbecue Defined

First, let’s take a moment to define barbecue. Cooking meat directly over a high temperature heat source is defined as grilling. Barbecue, on the other hand, is the practice of cooking:

• typically (but not limited to) less-than-tender cuts of meat,
• at low temperatures, between 212 and 250 degrees Fahrenheit,
• for long cooking times, usually four or more hours,
• preferably over a charcoal, or wood coal fired, indirect heat source,
• typically including the additional burning of smoke woods to impart certain desired flavor characteristics,
• the end result being tender and flavorful in a way not possible using higher
  temperatures and shorter cooking times.

History

I’ve had a cheap, no-name meat smoker sitting on the back porch for, oh, about 20 years. It was a freebie, so I never gave much thought to using it, except for once, and that was to grill some steaks. The fire flared up and burned the paint off of one side. After that, it pretty much served only to shelter nocturnal critters from the midday sun.

Some years later— after attending a real barbecue, where the meat was cooked “low and slow” to succulent perfection– I realized I needed to learn the ways of authentic barbecueing. My only experience trying to do barbecue had been a disaster. All I’ll say about that episode is, if you don’t know how to cook ribs, don’t serve your first attempt to guests, and don’t even think about using a gas grill.

Anyway, I got ambitious, cleaned up the old smoker, and gave it a shot. I was amazed that– even flying blind on this old hunk of junk, putting my faith in the “LOW-IDEAL-HIGH” built-in “thermometer”– it didn’t turn out half bad. Certain it could be better, I set out to try to improve the results. After some web research, I found the answer in the form of the Weber Smoky Mountain Cooker, a/k/a the Weber Bullet.

Why the Bullet?

Weber Bullet	Offset Smoker
High quality under $200	$200+ unless you buy one with cheaper too-thin metal
Porcelain enamel inside and out– Rust highly unlikely	Repainting necessary at some point– Rust likely
Virtually airtight	Vents, doors, etc. not airtight
Cook to fit the amount of meat desired	Not worth firing up unless cooking large quantities
Great results right out of the box	Modifications almost mandatory for best results
High quality cover included	Cover optional, extra

Following the definition at the top of the page, we find that the part of the process that requires the most control is the maintenance of temperature in that given narrow range. It’s pretty straightforward: fire needs fuel and oxygen. Reduce oxygen or take it away, and the fire burns fuel slower or goes out. Increase oxygen, and fire burns fuel more quickly, and hotter. If you have an adjustable means of regulating the amount of oxygen the fire gets, you can control the amount of heat generated, and, therefore, the cooking temperature. The Bullet accomplishes this task fairly well, by virtually closing off all sources of oxygen other than it’s four vents– three in the charcoal chamber, and one in the dome lid. All you need do is provide sufficient, properly ignited fuel in the beginning, monitor the temperature during the cook, and adjust the vents as necessary. It is also of benefit that the Bullet raises the charcoal up off the bottom of the cooker so that, as it burns down, the ash can fall away and not smother the burning coals.

In contrast, the no-name cheapo has no venting, save for the gap around the entire circumference of the charcoal pan, and the two small slits in the bottom of that pan. Using the old no-name on a windy day is pretty much a lost cause.

The biggest plus for me with the Bullet, though, is that I can get real barbecue results on a scale that fits my household. I don’t need to cook large quantities of meat to justify the amount of fuel a larger pit would consume. But, if need be, I could easily do ribs for 16 to 20 people on it, too.

Why this Webpage?

I thought this online chronicle of my experiences BBQ’ing with the Weber Bullet would be of value, not only to me– to help me better remember and be able to reexamine my methods– but to others who might come across it and perhaps see something they may find useful. You will see from these pages that I’m no expert at this– at this point, I’m only trying to put what I’ve read into practice– but I hope, with experience, I’ll become somewhat proficient.

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Getting Started

I received my Bullet as a birthday gift. Available in stock from only one store in the entire metropolitan area, I was able to obtain my cooker fully assembled and in perfect condition, due to the fact that the store receives them via truck freight rather than via parcel delivery. I had to wait an extra week, though, as the store sold their last one the day before my birthday, and then received boxes of nails in error on their next order. No matter, it gave me a week to read up on some BBQ techniques.

The day before my inaugural cook on the Bullet, I did two things: I burned about a pound of charcoal and a chunk of hickory in the cooker, and I prepared some spareribs in advance for the next day. This accomplished the following: The smoker usually burns hotter than desired the first few times because the porcelain coating reflects heat back into the cooker. Giving it a four-hour dry run coated the interior with a layer of soot that will assist in absorbing and conducting excess heat out of the cooker. The ribs being rubbed the day before and spending the night in the fridge makes for better overall flavor. To make the rub stick better, I coated the ribs with a thin layer of yellow mustard first.

The next day, at noon, I filled a charcoal chimney with coals, lit two sheets of crumpled newspaper in the bottom to get it started, and gave it about 30 minutes to get going really well. I poured the hot coals into the Bullet’s charcoal chamber and added an equal amount of unlit charcoal. I filled the cooker’s water pan with cold tap water. I removed the ribs from the refrigerator at this point to take the chill off. At 1:00pm the coals were ready and I added the meat to the cooker. The 4 lb. slab of pork spareribs went on the top grate, and the attending ribtips and skirt meat on the middle grate. I placed two chunks of hickory– about 2 by 2 by 3 inches each– on top of the coals.

I found that a New Braunfels 3″ thermometer I have would sort of thread into one of the holes in the top vent. To be extra certain, I placed the probe from my Polder Digital Thermometer/Timer through another of the vent’s holes. At this point, I had the three bottom vents open halfway each, and the top vent was technically two-thirds open because the NB thermometer was filling one of the 3 holes. The Polder told me that the temperature about 3 inches above the top grate was 230 degrees, which is fine because that means that the temp at the grate should be around 225– right in range. The NB gauge, however, read only 200 degrees, from a point about 3 inches higher up than the Polder– the reverse of the expected scenario. So I went in the house, and boiled some water to test it. It read 212 dead on. Maybe the proximity to the vent caused it to read lower. Anyway, I decided, correctly, to trust the Polder.

For the first three hours, I monitored the temp frequently, even though I was only doing a single slab of ribs. The Bullet got to show its stuff for this initial cook– at 1:00pm the weather was hot and sunny; at 1:30pm it sprinkled rain briefly and the sky remained overcast. Throughout these weather changes, the cooker’s temp showed no noticeable variations. I had to improvise some rain protection for the Polder, though.

At 4:00pm, three hours into the cook, I opened the smoker for the first time, and basted the ribs by spraying them with apple cider vinegar. I also turned them over at this point. I additionally took the opportunity to add two pounds of fresh gourmet chicken sausages to the top grate. I added another chunk of smoke wood to make sure the sausages got their due.

At 5:30pm, I again turned and basted the ribs, checked them for doneness, and turned the sausages as well.

At 6:15pm, the ribs were done, so I brushed on some of my no-sugar-added homemade finishing sauce. Poking the Polder probe into one of the sausages showed it to be done at 165 degrees, so I removed them at this point. I let the ribs stay on for 15 more minutes, just to glaze the sauce, and then removed them and let them rest, loosely covered in foil, for about 15 additional minutes.

What have we learned? Trust in your thermometer, but check it for accuracy. Other than that, this cook was smooth sailing. These ribs were perfect– tender and moist– not falling-off-the-bone, but rather the meat pulled from the bone cleanly, as it should. And the sausage was an added bonus– the slow smoke cooking really made them quite a treat.
And best of all, it was all done the right way– just consistent low and slow. I can’t wait to fire this thing up again next weekend.

No Sugar/No Salt Quick Barbecue Rub

• 2 parts Paprika
• 1 part Fine Black Pepper
• 1 part Cayenne (Red) Pepper
• 1 part Garlic Powder
• 1 part Onion Powder

Mix to taste to make about 1/4 cup of rub per 4 lb. slab of ribs.

No-Sugar-Added Barbecue Finishing Sauce

• 1 cup Estee Ketchup (No Sugar Added)
• 2 tsp. Fine Black Pepper
• 2 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp. Colgin Liquid Smoke (optional)

Mix all ingredients well, and heat in medium microwave oven until warm. Use as finishing sauce no sooner than last 30 minutes of cook, and as dipping sauce at the table.

I’ve had a cheap, no-name meat smoker sitting on the back porch for, oh, about 20 years. It was a freebie, so I never gave it much thought. Never used it but once, and that was to grill some steaks. The fire flared up and burned the paint off of one side. After that, it pretty
much served only to shelter nocturnal critters from the noon-day sun. My only other experience with barbecue was highly disastrous. All I’ll say about that episode is, if you don’t know how to cook ribs, don’t even think about serving your first attempt to guests, and don’t use a gas grill.

Some years later, after attending a real barbecue, where the meat is cooked “low and slow”, I realized I needed to learn the ways of authentic barbecueing. I got ambitious, cleaned up the old smoker, and gave it a shot. I was amazed that, even for a trial run – on this old hunk of junk – it didn’t turn out half bad. So, knowing it could be better, I set out to try to improve the results. After some web research, I found the answer in the form of the Weber Smoky Mountain Cooker, a/k/a the WSM or the Weber Bullet.