Pit Barrel Cooker (PBC) Appreciation Thread

I cooked a couple of salmon fillets on the Pit Barrel this evening. Applied a light rub and cooked them on some foil for about 25 minutes. I was looking for a target temperature about 125 to 130 degrees but by the time I checked they were up to 140 and in some spots 165 or higher.

I must say both fillets turned out great ... very moist without a hint of dryness and a very nice flavor. I really think the PBC does a great job of keeping a moist environment when cooking chicken and fish and other items. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Sounds good, Bob! Never tried that one but you make it sound worth it

johnnylightnin said:

Congrats on learning the lesson quicker than I did. It took about a year, but I don’t measure the PBC temp anymore.

It just does what it’s supposed to do. I just goof it up if I mess with it too much.


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Same here.... I have had my pbc for 3 years and never put a thermometer in it... it just cooks at what ever temp it wants... I have even lit it.. threw some pork shoulders in thenew left for 6hrs

AClarke44 said:

Hello my PBC brethren! Life has me really busy lately and for the forseeable future but I wanted to stop in and say hello and thank you for keeping this thread active! I'm glad it's still running strong. Lots of good advice being given. Keep it up!
If I do get a chance to cook up something in the PBC, I'll be sure to post it!
Take care!

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Miss ya brother. Feel free to stop by and say hello!

Good to see you posting Andrew. I also have been remiss in posting much here. I'll try to do better!

tonyjohnson619 said:

Same here.... I have had my pbc for 3 years and never put a thermometer in it... it just cooks at what ever temp it wants... I have even lit it.. threw some pork shoulders in thenew left for 6hrs

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This. The whole point of the PBC is to light it, toss the food in, and let it cook at whatever temperature it wants to cook. I use the PBC when I don't want to mess with things. If I want to dial in a temperature and have things take longer cooking lower (so I can sleep in usually on an overnight cook), I use the WSM.

hs106 said:

I was thinking about buying a PartyQ. Was a little concerned about the battery life and batteries quitting in the middle of a cook. How have you found the battery life?

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You are supposed to be able to run them with reusable batteries. I tried two brands and they didn't work. If you can get them running on reusables, just put in a fresh charged pair every time and don't worry about it.

I bought a Costco pack of Duracells and get probably 20ish hours out of a set. The hardest thing is that the battery indicator will tell you the batteries are nearly dead after 8-10 hours. It lies. I've done 5-6 hours with the indicator telling me it could die at any point.

Still, I tend to check once an hour to make sure it's still running. I used to actually run out and look at the thing. Now I can look out the window for the little puffs of smoke as the fan turns on.

Goose52 said:

PBC questions
i've had my pbc for about 3 years but it seems to me that my cooking times are longer than many people's. last week i did a rack of baby backs for 3.5 hours and 1/2 a chicken for 3.25 hours. they were both excellent but does this seem long to you? i have my vent opened much larger than what's recommended and i have resorted to using lighter fluid to get the briquettes going. i have noticed that coals by the vent burn faster than those on the other side which seem to burn sluggishly. any suggestions? longer startup time for the coals before putting lid on? advice on position of vent in relation to wind direction?

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I found the same thing for my PBC - everything took longer than advertised. I started monitoring temps and found things to be running at 220ish. That's fine if you want to do low and slow, but I don't have time for that, and want hot and fast, and somewhat predictable cooking times. The PartyQ fixed that for me.

I think it's just hard to have 1 barrel that works EVERYWHERE, and where I live, it's just not operating as intended.

I agree. Here in Vegas it can be 115 degrees or 25 degrees. I am at 3,000 feet and I never get the same temps with the vent set at one position and with using a set number of coals.

Fired up the PBC with the boy. Posted here: http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=272911

Hi all - got my PBC about 2.5 weeks ago and have cooked ribs and pulled pork so far. Both were awesome. I'll need to learn to post pics. I've had great success just following the videos on the site. I am interested in figuring out the half basket stuff but I figure I'll do that after getting used to things. For now, I'm getting 8-10 hours on a basket, not messing with it much and mainly setting and forgetting (a big selling point for me honestly). Waiting on approval I read a bit over 1/2 this thread, then jumped to the past 100 pages or so. Great thread and info. I'll read the rest over time.

I love BBQ (live in KC), have always wanted to get a smoker. Two things have always stopped me. First, I live alone and that's a lot of meat. Second, given the first point I haven't wanted to spend a ton on a smoker.

Stumbled upon the PBC site, started researching and was really interested in the PBJ. Turns out, they aren't selling those now and couldn't give me a time frame for when they would again (basically I got the impression it's not soon in correspondence). Decided to go PBC and just eat the leftovers during week/vac seal and freeze.

Long story short (too late), so far this has been an awesome purchase. The meat market/butcher close to my house is going to be getting way more of my $$$. But, spending $$$ eating out vs. leftovers and this thing will pay for itself over time, right? Right?

I have used my PBC twice since I last posted and tried lighting it using a chimney as recommended by others. I also rotated the coal basket after 90 minutes of cooking. The food was very good but the PBC didn't really work much differently. The coals still burned a little sluggishly. On the second cook (meatloaf) i actually had to crack the lid to get the coals & smoke going again. I guess i will try letting the coals really get going before putting on the meat which is counter to Noah's instruction video. Also i will go from 75% to 100% open on the air vent.

Make sure you are filling the charcoal basket to the top. Then take out from the center whatever number of charcoals it takes to fill the small sized charcoal chimney. Light up the charcoal chimney and put the grey and flaming charcoals in the center of the basket. Keep the intake adjusted as per your elevation.

I know these are the basic instructions but if you do them as directed, you get the proper heat you want. Like the 'ol saying... "it ain't rocket science".

are you letting the chimney of lit coals come to fully lit? make sure the top coals are that deep red/grey on fire before you dump.

If they are still mostly black with a little grey you need to wait a little longer for higher temps.

hs106 said:

I agree. Here in Vegas it can be 115 degrees or 25 degrees. I am at 3,000 feet and I never get the same temps with the vent set at one position and with using a set number of coals.

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I live in the high desert of Cali, and I'm at 3000 feet also, with temps that can be 18 degrees to well, lol, 115. I get just about the same temps every time. Maybe some barrels are manufactured with tighter tolerances or so.

When I first got my PBC, I measured my internal temps. I would be at 330* and then as the cook went on, I would get as low as 275*. Kinda averaged out around 300*. Worried about it. Worried some more. Then... quit measuring the temps and just started to hang the meat and sit back. The 'ol saying "it's done when it's done" works well on the PBC. For chicken, if I want crispier skin, I might tilt the top some the last 20 minutes or so. For pork loins and half chickens I monitor the internal temps with my remote thermometer. The PBC is a simple machine. Try not to make it hard.

I always measure temps, but it's more to see what's happening and figure out how long before I check when things might be done. I'm also trying to learn how it operates, i.e. how long I let it burn with the lid off at the start seems to affect how hot it will run.

More of a bbq-geek thing, I like to know what's happening and at least think I can have some control over it. The experiments are always tasty though, no matter what it ends up doing

STL, following the instruction lighting video to the letter results in an uneven fire to the point that i started looking online for forums & advice on the PBC. I will tweek my setup & fire startup until i get a consistent fire to cook over. thanks for the reply.

Here's my first attempt at posting a pic:

ahh, worked as well as my startup technique!