First Cook on New Fatboy

It's raining, it's pouring and these ribs are going to be killer!

I've honestly got no idea what I'm doing here. The Fatboy is very different from the WSM that I'm so very used to. I couldn't get the temp below 500 during my burn in and had some real concerns about my ability to pull this off in the pouring rain.

I've got 4 racks of Duroc back ribs from one of the most amazing butchers. I should have taken some pics of the pre-rub and rub, but all I've got is 1 hour-on. I just foiled them and will post more pics as my cook progresses.

I rubbed with "Jeff's Rub" last night and put them in the fridge. 2 hours uncovered, followed by an hour of foil, then a glaze about 15 min before pulling them.

So far so good. I need to get some sort of mat for the frnt of the cooker because charcoal dust and drippings end up on my patio. I ended up putting about 1/4 bag of coal in for a 5 hour cook and put about 12 lit coals in the corner. I'm running a Stoker and it's going well. Temp doesn't seem as stable as my WSM, but I'll have to throw my logger on next time to check deviation and fan activity. It's too wet to network it right now.

I got the Fatboy because I found it really inconvenient to cook more than 2 racks on my WSM. I really don't like using the second rack. So far, my Fatboy is working out well. The racks are very easy to get to and foiling was a breeze. I also found the top makes a really good table.

The jury is out on how they'll cook, but my money is on a good product.

More to come!









I put them on at 12:00 sharp. Foiled at 1:10 and pulled from foil at 3:20. I've stopped foiling for 2 hours because I keep finding the my ribs are too close to done at 4 hours, even at a consistent 225. Here are unfoiling picks.







One hour left, still humming along. Looking at the pullback on these, I will probably leave them in the foil for the full 2 hours next time. I find that 2 hours is too much on my WSM. I'm sure they'll come out well and will have some nice bark. Duroc's are also much thinker than standard backs, so I've had them cook more like spares at times.





5 hours and I've still got some time to go. I've never checked the temp of my ribs, but I'm finding it necessary to as my WSM ribs are done by now. I've got very little pullback. I'm at about 138F. I just cranked my temp to 250F so we can eat some time tonight.

5 1/2 hours, I'm going to glaze and pull.

Pre-Glaze:



Glazed with Everett and Jones:





Dinner:




Will post cut pics later. Need to eat now.

They turned out good. A bit firmer than I'm used to, but not dry and great flavor. There was no pullback, which I find interesting, but they were done.

I'm not sure what the yellow is that showed up in the pics. It was probably rub/sauce, but it wasn't there to the eye. I included a pick of a bitten off rib to show the pull. They had a nice pull and came off the bone with a little tug. Next time I'm going to do a straight up 2-2-1 and I think they'll be a bit softer. A successful cook all the way around.







Thanks for looking. :-D

I can't talk to the Stumps because I've never used one. I have, however, done a tremendous amount of research and all of it showed the Stumps, Spicewine and Backwoods are all good choices.

There are some small things about my new Fatboy that I'm grumpy about, but so far it's going really well.

I have used my Stoker on my WSM for nearly a year and it's a great device. Stoker vs Guru is an easier debate. They both work really well, but Stoker has better networking options and can control more cookers on a single unit.

I could leave my WSM unattended for 8 hours before I needed to add water and a little coal. That would never happen though because I'm spritzing every hour.

mikeTRON said:

Ah I gotcha... I was multitasking too much apparently

What are you grump about on your FATBOY?

Click to expand...

The water drain is not the lowest point in the water pan. The door doesn't open all the way, making rack removal less than smooth. I don't like that I have to slam the doors to get them to properly latch. I also think the firebox design could be better to avoid an ashy mess when loading.

These are minor issues, but easy design fixes in my opinion.

Thank you.

Thanks for all the compliments and tips. I've got a lot of experimenting to do. The first thing I'm going to do is ditch that rub. Everyone on the other forum raves about Jeff's Rub, but I'm not a huge fan.

I'm going to try my next set as a straight and simple 2-2-1. I'll also try a rack uncovered and probably throw on some spares.