1. Be able to cook the ribs indirectly (away from the flame)
2. Be able to produce smoke
3. Be able to reasonably maintain a consistent temperature
I am not going to get into whether charcoal or gas is a better method for your cook. Both have their pros and cons. Of the 3 items listed above, a charcoal grill will give you better smoke, while temperature control is much easier on a gas setup. While each type of grill has it's own particular tricks and tweaks to be made, either can be used to cook a fine rack of ribs, or anything else you'll want to cook. I'm also not going to go much into depth on what type of grill, be it kettle, off-set, water smoker, or whatever. You can spend $1500 on a heavy duty Lang smoker with 1/4" steel panels and your food may not taste nearly as good as someone with a $100 Webber kettle (which, in all honesty, is one of the best, most versatile grills on the planet). Remember, it's all about the technique.
With that out of the way I'll introduce my setup at home. While I've got no issue with gas grills, I'm a member of the charcoal coalition
In the back is my Char-Broil barrel style grill, which has seen it's share of cooks in the past 4 years. In the front is my Char-Griller Akorn kamado style cooker, which has become my main cooker for longer cooks like brisket and pork shoulder. While I could use either to do my ribs, I'm using the Akorn for this cook.
Now let's talk heat sources
Here I have charcoal briquettes, lump charcoal, and a mixture of hardwood chunks, all in 5 gallon buckets. The small 1 gallon bucket holds soaked wood chips. Each have their use, depending on what food I'm cooking and what grill I'm using. It has been argued that lump charcoal burns hotter than your charcoal briquettes, and possibly burns longer. Lump also produces less ash than briquettes. On the other hand, lump is also more expensive than briquettes, isn't carried in as many stores and unless used properly can be less consistent temperature-wise because of the varying sizes of the pieces of lump. With briquettes, they are always readily available, less expensive, and burn extremely consistently from bag to bag. You will find people that champion either form of charcoal with a diehard fervor. While I don't know if there is a 'best' in this battle, I do know my Akorn (and other kamado smokers) recommend using lump charcoal, mainly because of how these cookers are designed. With my other grill? Either works fine. What brand? More than a few pitmasters say it really doesn't matter. You can find Kingsford practically anywhere. Royal Oak is also pretty popular and available across the country. I've used Stubbs lump briquettes (not sure if that's really a thing or just marketing, but whatever...) for the last few years. Whatever you do, please DO NOT use those MatchLight briquettes or any charcoal that has been pretreated with fluid!!! It takes forever for those chemicals to burn off the charcoal, if it ever does. 9 times out of 10 your food will be left with a nasty taste, and is one reason some people don't care for charcoal grills. There are much easier, safer, and better ways to light your coals, which we will get to in a bit.
While the charcoal will provide it's own smoky flavor, we'll need some more for the ribs. That's where the wood chunks come in. Hickory and mesquite wood chunks are usually easy enough to find at the store. However, some pitmasters prefer the smoke from fruit trees, like cherry, apple or peach. Oak, maple and pecan are also popular on the cooking circuit. You'll find some that say apple wood goes good when cooking chicken, or cherry goes well with pork. You'll also find those that believe you really can't tell the difference. Most do agree, though, that mesquite can provide too heavy of a smoky flavor to your food. My take? Try a few and see what you like. My bucket has a mix of apple, cherry and pecan wood chunks that have served me well. As for the chips, those I will use when grilling foods that will cook much faster, like seafood. The chips are usually soaked in water first, since they will burn much quicker than chunks, then put directly over the hot coals. For the chunks, they don't need to be soaked.
Let's take a second to talk about how to light your fire:
My favorite way to light charcoal, hands down, is with the chimney starter, shown on the orange bucket. The charcoal goes in the top. Next, 2 crumpled pieces of newspaper go in the bottom. Set the chimney on a fireproof surface or one of the grates of your grill, light the newspaper, and wait 10-15 minutes. The paper burns long enough to ignite the charcoal at the bottom of the chimney, which then lights the other coals. No muss, no fuss, no lighter fluid, and it only cost 2 pages of the sports section.Personally, I believe every charcoal grill should be sold with one. Two other really good options are shown to the left or the right. The Weber lighter cubes, or other similar paraffin lighters, work really well. Simply arrange your charcoal in your grill, add the cube inside the middle of the charcoal pile (you can use more than 1 cube or break the cube into pieces as well) and light the cube. The cube will burn between 8-10 minutes, igniting the charcoal in the process. Fire Liters are popular with those who have a fireplace in the house, and work similarly to the paraffin cubes (though they don't burn as hot, they do burn a bit longer than the cubes). There are other ways to light your coals, like an electric starter (an electric coil that heats and ignites the coals) or a weedburner (a modified propane torch), but these shown have worked for me without fail.
Now we can move onto getting the grill going. The grill is going to have to burn for 3-5 hours depending on your grill and the ribs you're cooking. The ribs will be cooked indirectly, meaning the they will not be directly over the fire. The grill will also be kept at a relatively low temperature (225 - 250 degrees). The type of grill that you have will determine what setup you will need. Here's what I have to do for my Akorn (other kamado style grills are similar):
One of the benefits of a kamado style grill is it's efficiency. It can maintain a constant temperature without using a whole lot of charcoal. Rather than filling up the entire grill, I fashioned a small basket of sorts with some expanded steel and metal zip ties, which I put in the center of the grill and fill with lump charcoal and a few chunks of apple and cherry wood for smoke. Next, I placed a Fire Lighter brick in the center of the coals and lit it.
After about 20 minutes, enough of the coals were lit to finish setting up the grill. Since the ribs were going to be cooked indirectly, I needed a shield to go between the fire below and the upper grill grate. I have found using a regular, 14" pizza pan wrapped in aluminum foil generally does the trick. Usually kamado grills will have a ceramic plate that can be used as both a heat deflector and a heat sink, helping to stabilize the temperature in the grill (it can also be used as a pizza stone when cooking pizzas on the grill). When I first bought the grill, the ceramic plate wasn't available at the store, and I never bothered calling Char-Griller to order one. At some point I will get one for my kamado. For the time being, the pizza pan has worked just fine.
After the deflector is in place and the upper grill is installed, it's time for one of the most important tools in my arsenal: a digital thermometer. Yes, many grills have thermometers embedded in the lids. However, by and large these thermometers suck. At best, the position of the thermometer is such that you can't get an accurate reading on how hot the grill is at the grate where the food is. What the thermometer will read is the temperature of the air near the top of the dome, which at best will still be inaccurate. With a digital thermometer, you can set the probe much closer to the grate and the food, giving you a much more accurate reading. My personal choice (and choice for numerous other pitmasters) is the Maverick ET-732. The Maverick comes with 2 temperature probes, so you can set one probe up to monitor the grill temperature, and have the other inside the meat to measure it's temperature at the same time. There is a wireless receiver as well, so you can monitor the temperature while doing something else around the house, which is extremely useful for a long cook. An alarm can be set for either probe to alert you when the target temperature has been reached (or if the temperature is too high or too low, if you chose). You can generally find these online for about $50-$60. It will be money well spent, trust me.
When cooking ribs, I will set the Maverick up with just the temperature probe, which I place close to the grill grate. Then I shut the lid, adjust the vents, and wait until the temperature stabilizes at 250 degrees. Since I've got the receiver on hand, I don't have to keep running back outside to check the temps.
As mentioned earlier, your setup will vary depending on your grill. If you're working with a gas grill, it's pretty simple. Light one of the burners on one side of the grill, and place the ribs on the other side where the burners aren't lit. Maintaining the temperature is as easy as turning the burner up or down. In order to add smoke, toss some chunks of wood (or wood chips that have been soaked for an hour or so) in aluminum foil, then fold the foil into a pouch. Poke a few holes in the foil and place the pouch over the flavorizer bars (or lava rocks, depending on your grill). There are also smoker boxes (small metal containers where you can add wood chips) specifically made for gas grills that you can find at your local hardware store if you so choose.
With a charcoal grill, adding smoke to the proceedings is a snap. Maintaining a steady temperature over the 3-5 hour time period is the hard part. The most effective way to do this is to use either the Minion method or the Snake method. The idea behind both methods is to have a large load of charcoal set up in the grill, but only light a few of those coals initially. Those coals are then placed on top of the unlit coals (for the Minion method) or at the beginning of the chain of coals (for the Snake method). The lit coals will then slowly ignite the rest of the unlit coals over the course of the cook, keeping the temperatures relatively stable. A detailed explanation of the Minion method can be found here. A thread detailing how to set up a grill for the Snake method can be found here. For those of you that are visual learners, you can get an idea of the minion method here:
For the snake method, check this out:
Once the coals are set up the temperature is then set and maintained through the vents on the grill. A fire needs fuel (charcoal, wood, etc) and air to burn. The more air the fire has, the hotter it will burn. The less air, the exact opposite. Opening or closing the vents on the grill will control the temperature. A much more detailed discussion on controlling the grill temperature with your vents can be found here.
Once the fire has been started, there's one last thing to be set up: the drip pan. There's going to be a lot of fat rendering off during the cook, which will drop to the bottom of the grill. Now, if you don't mind cleaning up the mess after the grill is cooled down, be my guess. a much better way would be to place a metal or aluminum pan beneath the part of the grill you will have your ribs on. Filling the pan with water will give you two additional benefits. First, the steam from the water will add additional moisture to the ribs, helping tenderize them. Second, and more technical, the water pan will act as sort of a heat sink, which will help stabilize the temperature of the grill over the course of the cook.
Great Information, Bro...awaiting Part 3!!!
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