British BBQ Society Forums

Soooo, as I am sure many of you are fed up with my constant questions (to quote Arnie "who is your daddy and what does he do") I finally settled on...... buying a Weber 57cm one touch kettle, I saw one in a garden centre not too long back and loved it the look of it so come the end of the month I will be ordering my burger burner.

Now this leaves me to others questions ( if you guys think i'm annoying you should you should hear what the mrs says about me!!) firstly I want something like a smokenator at some point (to begin I will use the offset cooking method, coals one side meat the other and monitor the temp using the vents) so does anyone know where I can get this or something like in the UK? and secondly, how much coal should I be using to start with for an 8 hour cook?

And finally, here is a dangerous question...seasoning ribs, what is the best rub? (can of worms successfully opened )

Okay, if you google smokenator in the UK you should find a supplier, they are stocked here. As for coals, I use 1 chimney with a dozen lit coals, as to rubs have a look at the stock on here (through the say sausages.com store). I'd start of with just salt, pepper & garlic. As top commercial rubs it all depends on personal taste.

Hi PDC,
Never fret about asking questions, if someone rolls their eyes and thinks "not that old chesnut" then they are at liberty to ignore the topic forthwith.

So to your questions, I have an weber kettle and think the smokinator all rather superfluous, I pile unlit either side, sling in about a third of an chimney of lit and it does the business, last beef took 5 hours and when I shut the vents down had a chimney full for the next day.

Rubs.....now this is an ethereal one......Keith talks absolute sense, give the basic s and p plus garlic a go, have a read of the rubs and sauces section but if you want to buy one the offerings from say sausages have good reviews.

For me purchased rubs feel like my journey with purchased bbq sauce.....ooh! uncle jones old western hickory style ole school downtown bbq sauce £2.95 a bit on the pricey side but.......get it home and yuk! then waste as much money again trying to blend it off to something acceptable. Make your own basic rub and play to your hearts content, there is no right answer it is personal taste, made a rib rub at the weekend and added fennel and mustard seeds, bit, chewed mused and before I could utter "hmmmm wont be doing that again the missus was coo-ing and the youngest comesrunning in dad these ribs are fantastic! balls, will have to ruin my rub again to get family approval.....

But rambling now, hopefully enough to get you started,
Cheers
Tiny

Another method to use for low n slow on you kettle is whats called (variously) the snake or fuse method.

This involves creating a ring of coals/heatbeads around the edge of the kettle (usually 2 rows on the bottom with one row on top) and then adding some (8 or so) lit coals to one end.

You can then lay chips/chunks of wood around part of the snake to add smoke for as much of the cook as you want.

You can usually get up to 10-12 hours from this method and with a bit of practice you can add unlit beads to the end effectively over what was the beginning) to prolong the cook.

You can kind of see it here:



Ken

If its pork ribs search for meatheads memphis dust

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

I do it the way you describe - about 3/4 of a chimney unlit on one side and about 1/4 - 1/3rd lit on top, 2 chunks off wood on top of that, water tray above the coals. I use the supplied coal divider thing but would like to get fire bricks.

I've started foiling the entire part of the charcoal grate that doesn't have coals on it, seems to direct air to the coals better and burns longer.

I tend to top up the coals after a couple of hours.

Gents,

Thanks for the relies,got my burger burn this morn, assembled and now I've taken it's burning virginity, and yes I was sat in the rain

I'm attending an open farm day tomorrow so hopefully will leave with more meat than I could shake a stick at and then burn it all tomorrow eve

Thanks for the gel gents, got my kettle yesterday morning and I'm having tea off it for the second time tonight

Starting simple at the moment, burgers sausages chicken thighs and the likes, I want a good understanding of cooking with the lid on as I previously have only cooked over open nuclear hot coals.

I think this is going to be an interesting journey for me, I have briquettes and lump wood so I'm going to try briquettes a few times then lump wood and then a mix to under stand flavour preferences and heat / times (also got some heat beads for smoking) but the main thing I noticed last night I am missing having a table/shelf attached to the Bbq, but I'm going to remedy this with a small portable / collapsible table I can store in the shed.

Keep me informed how your lump goes sounds interesting.

Also the first few cooks in mine the whole thing was damned hot. I think you've got to get the shiny off with a layer of soot to make it useable.