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Misunderstanding
Apr. 28th, 2008 02:46 pmSo Q in a recent post in her journal talked about how I was getting a new BBQ grill even though I have a perfectly fine Weber One-Touch Gold. I thought that I would give my side of the story.
First things first. I like to smoke meat. [Pause while the snickering dies down.] I have smoked a few pork butts or picnic hams to make a fine pulled pork, and I've tried quite a few ribs. And, of course, I have grilled a bunch of stuff, too, but let's not confuse grilling with BBQ or smoking.
The results I've had with my varying attempts at smoking have been mixed. A few things that I've made have been just GREAT. Some things have been poor. A perfect example of poor attempts would be the spare ribs that I made just last night. They were not great (unlike the mashed sweet potatoes, which were awesome). The biggest problem is that the grill was just too small for two racks of ribs. You see, in a standard Weber kettle grill, you have to build a couple of little piles of coals for the heat, and them bank them off to the side so that they don't provide too MUCH heat and cause burning. And that's the problem I had... the ribs just took up too much surface space and the edges got severely charred. The meat under the burnt part was good, but the outside was terrible. Heat management is a big problem with the Weber (or rather with me, as i'm just not good enough at it).
So how would a new grill possible help with this? Let me answer that with another question: Why are you still reading this? Seriously, it's pretty boring for everyone but me. But I digress. Now then, in order to understand how this new grill might help me on my quest for smoking consistencty, we need to take a quick look at this grill. Here's a picture:
So this is what's known as a horizontal offset smoker. The little box on the right hand side holds the fuel (charcoal and/or wood). It passes hot smoke through to the main cooking chamber where it dances across the pork and makes it taste all yummy. In short, the meat being cooked is far from the high heat of the coals and therefore cooks slowly like it should without getting all charred. But what if I want to make a steak and I want all of that high heat? Well, it's a grill, too, so I just put the coals in the main cooking body, move the coals to the proper distance away from the meat (it's got a little crank that moves the coal tray up and down) and voila.
Anyway, this is a lot of words for a stupid subject. My grill should be here Thursday. Now I have to go clean out my car and then go and buy smokes.
First things first. I like to smoke meat. [Pause while the snickering dies down.] I have smoked a few pork butts or picnic hams to make a fine pulled pork, and I've tried quite a few ribs. And, of course, I have grilled a bunch of stuff, too, but let's not confuse grilling with BBQ or smoking.
The results I've had with my varying attempts at smoking have been mixed. A few things that I've made have been just GREAT. Some things have been poor. A perfect example of poor attempts would be the spare ribs that I made just last night. They were not great (unlike the mashed sweet potatoes, which were awesome). The biggest problem is that the grill was just too small for two racks of ribs. You see, in a standard Weber kettle grill, you have to build a couple of little piles of coals for the heat, and them bank them off to the side so that they don't provide too MUCH heat and cause burning. And that's the problem I had... the ribs just took up too much surface space and the edges got severely charred. The meat under the burnt part was good, but the outside was terrible. Heat management is a big problem with the Weber (or rather with me, as i'm just not good enough at it).
So how would a new grill possible help with this? Let me answer that with another question: Why are you still reading this? Seriously, it's pretty boring for everyone but me. But I digress. Now then, in order to understand how this new grill might help me on my quest for smoking consistencty, we need to take a quick look at this grill. Here's a picture:
So this is what's known as a horizontal offset smoker. The little box on the right hand side holds the fuel (charcoal and/or wood). It passes hot smoke through to the main cooking chamber where it dances across the pork and makes it taste all yummy. In short, the meat being cooked is far from the high heat of the coals and therefore cooks slowly like it should without getting all charred. But what if I want to make a steak and I want all of that high heat? Well, it's a grill, too, so I just put the coals in the main cooking body, move the coals to the proper distance away from the meat (it's got a little crank that moves the coal tray up and down) and voila.
Anyway, this is a lot of words for a stupid subject. My grill should be here Thursday. Now I have to go clean out my car and then go and buy smokes.
