Blarg
Knows what WELOCME spells.
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2010
- Location
- San Dimas Ca
Hi Everyone,
My real name is Eric and I do live in the land of Bill and Ted. I grew up in Orange County and learned everything I know about barbequeing from my father. Which is why I am here. To unlearn that.
My wife used to call my ribs food of the gods, otherwise known as burnt offerings. No matter how I tried on my own to get them right I was obviosly using the wrong tools, the wrong heat, the wrong preperation and of course at least once in the cooking process the flare ups would knock satellites out of orbit.
I had a low end propane barbeque and the fats would hit the lava rock and you know the story. Before you can move the ribs are blackend. I was starting to move in the right direction when the house we bought had a charcoal setup with a countertop.
The previous owner installed two Fire Magic 19" charcoal grills with the cranks to raise or lower the coals. By the time we bought the house the cranks were frozen in place and the pans below rotted out. I limped along using aluminum roasting pans propped up with bricks but it was looking a little hillbilly for middle class suburbia so I tried to remodel the island to fit in a new propane barbeque.
Oops. The front unit came out fine the back one took half the island with it. The worst part was to find out that the brick was a special size made back in the 70's as a paver that is now a 1/2" larger than todays paver but 1/2" smaller than a regular brick. So a complete overhaul was needed.
Not ready yet to commit to a full time smoker, knowing that the family gatherings were going to have a wide variety of foods and more often than not some bugers and hotdogs, I decided to go propane.
At first I was going to blow a lot of money on a Twin Eagles drop in then after talking to my wife she said she wanted more counter space to set food out. So I opted for basicly a buffet table and bought a Weber Summit 470 for the barbeque which allowed me to place it anywhere.
This is the current setup.
Now that I had the tools all I needed was the skills. So I bought some. I know this sounds like cooking classes but in fact it was a rotisserie attachment. Not wanting to come off as a salesman pitching a product I'll just post a pic of the thing which I nicknamed the ferris wheel of flavor.
Following some simple directions like peeling the membrane off the back of the baby backs and then coating them with a store bought rub, the cooking process was relatively simple. And I almost screwed that up as well.
The Weber has this very easy to read dial on the front and I set the burnes so it would reach about 250 degress with the lid closed. With some oak and apple wood chips in the smoker box I felt I was on the right track. Until the smoke seemed a little more than just some buring wood. And it was.
The temp guage was at the 250 mark but not paying close enough attention that was celcius. Inside the temperature was above 500 degress and the ribs were cooking alright, almost about to resemble my usual disasters.
Leaving the top open and shutting down the burners I finaly got it cooled down and even with the flash sear on the outside the ribs, after quit a bit of spraying with apple cider and vinegar mix, softened up enough that they were actualy pretty good.
Since then I've been expiramenting with rubs and later cooking methods. The rotisserie attachment can only handle baby backs, which is fine because that's my wife's favorites and only recently did I stumble upon the 2:1:1 method and now my ribs are moist as well full of flavor.
I know the purests are not going to believe the Weber Summit on propane can produce some good ribs and I'm definitly not challenging the slow cook wood kettles. But for those barbeque guys that are just trying to make the move to better tasting meats and have a crowd that wants chicken, pork, steak, burgers and dogs all at the same time, I think this barbeque fits the bill.
Anyway that's my story so far. Grew up without a clue, have since bought some nice gear to work with and I'm testing out new flavors for fun and not competition. I look forward to reading about everyone else's backyard adventures and hopefully a few guys with a setup like mine can share some successfull recipies and techniques.
My real name is Eric and I do live in the land of Bill and Ted. I grew up in Orange County and learned everything I know about barbequeing from my father. Which is why I am here. To unlearn that.
My wife used to call my ribs food of the gods, otherwise known as burnt offerings. No matter how I tried on my own to get them right I was obviosly using the wrong tools, the wrong heat, the wrong preperation and of course at least once in the cooking process the flare ups would knock satellites out of orbit.
I had a low end propane barbeque and the fats would hit the lava rock and you know the story. Before you can move the ribs are blackend. I was starting to move in the right direction when the house we bought had a charcoal setup with a countertop.
The previous owner installed two Fire Magic 19" charcoal grills with the cranks to raise or lower the coals. By the time we bought the house the cranks were frozen in place and the pans below rotted out. I limped along using aluminum roasting pans propped up with bricks but it was looking a little hillbilly for middle class suburbia so I tried to remodel the island to fit in a new propane barbeque.
Oops. The front unit came out fine the back one took half the island with it. The worst part was to find out that the brick was a special size made back in the 70's as a paver that is now a 1/2" larger than todays paver but 1/2" smaller than a regular brick. So a complete overhaul was needed.
Not ready yet to commit to a full time smoker, knowing that the family gatherings were going to have a wide variety of foods and more often than not some bugers and hotdogs, I decided to go propane.
At first I was going to blow a lot of money on a Twin Eagles drop in then after talking to my wife she said she wanted more counter space to set food out. So I opted for basicly a buffet table and bought a Weber Summit 470 for the barbeque which allowed me to place it anywhere.
This is the current setup.
Now that I had the tools all I needed was the skills. So I bought some. I know this sounds like cooking classes but in fact it was a rotisserie attachment. Not wanting to come off as a salesman pitching a product I'll just post a pic of the thing which I nicknamed the ferris wheel of flavor.
Following some simple directions like peeling the membrane off the back of the baby backs and then coating them with a store bought rub, the cooking process was relatively simple. And I almost screwed that up as well.
The Weber has this very easy to read dial on the front and I set the burnes so it would reach about 250 degress with the lid closed. With some oak and apple wood chips in the smoker box I felt I was on the right track. Until the smoke seemed a little more than just some buring wood. And it was.
The temp guage was at the 250 mark but not paying close enough attention that was celcius. Inside the temperature was above 500 degress and the ribs were cooking alright, almost about to resemble my usual disasters.
Leaving the top open and shutting down the burners I finaly got it cooled down and even with the flash sear on the outside the ribs, after quit a bit of spraying with apple cider and vinegar mix, softened up enough that they were actualy pretty good.
Since then I've been expiramenting with rubs and later cooking methods. The rotisserie attachment can only handle baby backs, which is fine because that's my wife's favorites and only recently did I stumble upon the 2:1:1 method and now my ribs are moist as well full of flavor.
I know the purests are not going to believe the Weber Summit on propane can produce some good ribs and I'm definitly not challenging the slow cook wood kettles. But for those barbeque guys that are just trying to make the move to better tasting meats and have a crowd that wants chicken, pork, steak, burgers and dogs all at the same time, I think this barbeque fits the bill.
Anyway that's my story so far. Grew up without a clue, have since bought some nice gear to work with and I'm testing out new flavors for fun and not competition. I look forward to reading about everyone else's backyard adventures and hopefully a few guys with a setup like mine can share some successfull recipies and techniques.
