Bought me some nice pork side ribs. Trimmed them all up, put a generous amount of rub on them and let 'em sit for a few hours.
Some time later I started to gather what I needed outside to start the low and slow 4-5 hour cook. Got all in the zone and excited.
My Mother and Brother are coming over for dinner and I aim to impress.
And that's when it all started to go wrong.
I use some old house bricks to keep the charcoal on one side of the grill for offset cooking. Couldn't find the bricks. They weren't where I left them. Asked around and no one had seen them. I'm married, so you know that means that they were in the way somehow and now are gone forever. Ok, my mood is sour but I can press on somehow.
Find an old weber grill basket to use but it's not quite going to work for what I want. Time is ticking so I use it anyway.
Go to light the charcoal, totally forgetting that I only need a half chimney (if that) to put on the unlit charcoal.
I light it up and think I'm doing really good. I only use Kingsford briquettes and never have had an issue.
However, this time, they are generating a tremendous amount of smoke. Like you might have though the house was on fire.
That eventually dissipated as the charcoal got all nice and ashy.
Dump it in the grill and realize that I didn't put any wood chunks on there. Can't figure out why so I go to get some apple wood. I bought a new bag because I was out. Go to the shed and find.... and unopened bag of apple wood. So now I have two bags! yay me!
Throw some wood chunks in the coals (again forgetting this is not the right thing to do) toss the grate back on and close the lid. Set up the dampers where I need them and figure I'm doing good.
I need to check temp at the grill level to see where we are and realize I didn't put the thermometer on.
Rush to get the batteries loaded up and pop open the lid to the kettle.
I was greeted with a HUGE blast of nasty white smoke. I realize that it's because the wood chunks went right on the super hot coals and instead of a nice slow burn, they were almost on fire. I quickly get the thermometer on the grill. Keeping an eye on the temps, they are around 350 and holding solid. Too hot for the ribs so I try everything I can to get the temp down but I just can't. Of course, the clock is ticking and I need to get them on one way or another. Open the lid again and ANOTHER huge blast of nasty white smoke.
Ribs are now in danger of being not cooked at all.
So, I did what I had to and shut the kettle down. Went inside and put the ribs on in the oven (a tear or two was shed over this) but I did find a very good recipe from amazingribs.com for oven baked pork ribs that turned out really good. I didn't have time to follow the recipe exactly but I did what I could and they turned out very good.
And after all that, I can still say, a bad day BBQing is better than a good day at work.
Some time later I started to gather what I needed outside to start the low and slow 4-5 hour cook. Got all in the zone and excited.
My Mother and Brother are coming over for dinner and I aim to impress.
And that's when it all started to go wrong.
I use some old house bricks to keep the charcoal on one side of the grill for offset cooking. Couldn't find the bricks. They weren't where I left them. Asked around and no one had seen them. I'm married, so you know that means that they were in the way somehow and now are gone forever. Ok, my mood is sour but I can press on somehow.
Find an old weber grill basket to use but it's not quite going to work for what I want. Time is ticking so I use it anyway.
Go to light the charcoal, totally forgetting that I only need a half chimney (if that) to put on the unlit charcoal.
I light it up and think I'm doing really good. I only use Kingsford briquettes and never have had an issue.
However, this time, they are generating a tremendous amount of smoke. Like you might have though the house was on fire.
That eventually dissipated as the charcoal got all nice and ashy.
Dump it in the grill and realize that I didn't put any wood chunks on there. Can't figure out why so I go to get some apple wood. I bought a new bag because I was out. Go to the shed and find.... and unopened bag of apple wood. So now I have two bags! yay me!
Throw some wood chunks in the coals (again forgetting this is not the right thing to do) toss the grate back on and close the lid. Set up the dampers where I need them and figure I'm doing good.
I need to check temp at the grill level to see where we are and realize I didn't put the thermometer on.
Rush to get the batteries loaded up and pop open the lid to the kettle.
I was greeted with a HUGE blast of nasty white smoke. I realize that it's because the wood chunks went right on the super hot coals and instead of a nice slow burn, they were almost on fire. I quickly get the thermometer on the grill. Keeping an eye on the temps, they are around 350 and holding solid. Too hot for the ribs so I try everything I can to get the temp down but I just can't. Of course, the clock is ticking and I need to get them on one way or another. Open the lid again and ANOTHER huge blast of nasty white smoke.
Ribs are now in danger of being not cooked at all.
So, I did what I had to and shut the kettle down. Went inside and put the ribs on in the oven (a tear or two was shed over this) but I did find a very good recipe from amazingribs.com for oven baked pork ribs that turned out really good. I didn't have time to follow the recipe exactly but I did what I could and they turned out very good.
And after all that, I can still say, a bad day BBQing is better than a good day at work.
