New UDS build with pron!

Worked all weekend on my UDS. The results were DELICIOUS!

Comments included..."The best ribs I ever ate..." "Did you smoke these?" "No...really....DID YOU SMOKE THESE?"

Here she is... Still needs some paint...I only used one coat high temp engine paint. More tweaks to follow.



BB's schmered with French's yellow mustard and coated with Buttrub.



Here they are laid out on the UDS. I started out with a basket of 8-9 pounds of Kingsford with a mixture of hickory and apple wood. Started it up with Minion method with my trusty HF weed burner. With lid off, caps and valve wide open temperature climbed to 230 within 10 minutes. After I placed the lid on, I removed all pipe caps and turned the valve wide open. Temps initially dropped to 200 and then started to climb.



After temps hit 230, I started adding caps. Temps continued to climb. After all caps capped and valve opened up at half. Temps were rock steady at 225.

Check out the BLUE SMOKE!



I smoked the ribs for four hours and sauced them during the last 30 mins. The rack at the top had home-made BBQ sauce. The small rack in the middle had "Sweet Baby Ray's" and the rack below was dry rub only.



The small rack with the SBR sauce was my favorite. All had a great bark with super flavor. The bottom skin got a little crispy and the third rack was a tad bit on the dry side.

I capped up the UDS, sealed up the drum and checked on it several hours later. Fire had been snuffed out and the UDS was cool to touch. Opened it up and lo and behold I only used about 4 pounds of charcoal!! an I still have a half a basket to use for next time!

Lessons learned...

The UDS kicks MAJOR Arse!

BB ribs cook FAST! I should have checked them at 3 hours.

I could not have done it without you guys on the forum!

cardiac_cadet002 said:

gratz! How does using the bung as an exhaust work for ya??

Click to expand...

It's kind of hard for me to judge... I would like to have some type of pipe to help with the flow ventilation.

It was a crappy day to BBQ as the weather was very humid and raining off and on. I found myself at first removing and replacing caps on the pipe nipples to adjust the temperature. I will probably add another valve for fine tuning the temp.

Once the rain quit and the wind died down, it stayed rock solid temperature wise.

I just wished I would have taken the ribs off sooner as the backs of the ribs were a little crispy as well as one of the racks being a tad bit on the dry side.

Seeing how this was my first UDS cook, the tips and tricks from this forum were invaluable. Now...it's just gonna take practice...practice..practice..

Had some questions about my charcoal basket.

I used a Weber 10.5 inch charcoal grate as the base. I bought a 12x24 piece of expanded metal at Lowe's. I cut the expanded metal in half. I then had two pieces of 6x24. I stick welded a handle to the grate (base) and then went around the base spot welding the expanded metal.. I really had to crank my stick welder down as it was burning through the expanded metal like buttah.

Time was not on my side for an ash pan, so I ended up cutting my remaining piece of expanded metal and folded them in half to use to elevate the basket. I had to vacuum out the ashes..

Here is the basket. 10.5" in diameter and 6" tall. It held about 8 pounds of charcoal with about 4 handfulls of wood chips. This is the result of about a 4.5 hour cook (taking into account starting and cooling off)





Went to HF this weekend and picked up a welding slag hammer for $4... HMM...looks like a handle to me? I fired up the MAPP gas, placed the hammer in a vise and bent me a nice 45. Just have to attach it.