Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons (7 page)

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Authors: Colleen Rush,Gary Wiviott

BOOK: Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons
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3. Set the center ring on the ground, but leave the lid on to retain as much heat as possible.
 
4. Pour fresh, unlit charcoal over the burning coals, filling the chamber to the top edge.
 
5. Pour the chimney full of lit charcoal into the charcoal chamber over the unlit charcoal and wood. Remember to check the bottom vents and remove any stray pieces of charcoal blocking the vents.
6. After five or ten minutes, when the initial clouds of charcoal smoke stop billowing, reassemble the cooker.
TIP:
After refreshing the charcoal on any of the cookers, leave the lid of the firebox or cooker open for five to ten minutes, until the charcoal fully engages and stops billowing smoke. This initial smoke from the charcoal can give your meat a bitter, acrid flavor.
 
OFFSET
 
When it’s time to replenish the charcoal or refill the water pan in an offset smoker, you will no doubt understand why this style of cooker is popular among the bourbon-drinking set. When the initial batch of charcoal is half to three-quarters burned through—plenty of time to sip a few fingers of whiskey—loading in new charcoal takes no more effort than lifting the lid of the firebox and pouring in a fresh batch.
RESTOCKING THE OFFSET FIREBOX
 
1. If the charcoal grate is less than half full of glowing hot coals, pour a chimney starter half full of unlit charcoal onto the grate. (If the grate is more than half full of hot coals, pour a chimney full of unlit charcoal directly onto the lit coals and skip steps 2 and 3).
 
2. Fill the chimney starter with charcoal and light it (see Starting Your Chimney, page 28).
 
3. When the charcoal in the chimney is fully engaged, scatter the lit charcoal on the grate in the firebox.
 
4. Add one clean, debarked split of wood to the pile of lit charcoal.
 
5. Wait five to ten minutes, until the initial smoke from the new charcoal and wood stops billowing; then close the firebox.
TIP:
Check the water pan every time you refresh the charcoal and wood. A low water pan will cause the coals to burn hotter and faster. The water pan should be at least half full at all times.
 
KETTLE
 
Using a kettle for low and slow barbecuing requires more maintenance throughout the cook. You’re using less charcoal in a smaller cooker that tends to run hotter, all of which means you’ll need to check the water pan and charcoal every thirty to forty-five minutes. The hinged cooking grate on most large kettle-style grills makes replenishing the charcoal easier. If your kettle does not have a hinged grate, look into buying one.
REFILLING THE KETTLE WATER PAN
 
1. Lift the lid and carefully pour clean water into the aluminum loaf pan if it is less than half full.
RESTOCKING THE KETTLE TWO-ZONE FIRE
 
1. Ten minutes before you need to re-stock, fill the chimney starter halfway with unlit charcoal and light it (see Starting Your Chimney, page 28).
 
2. When the charcoal is fully engaged, remove the lid of the grill and lift the handle on the hinged cooking grate with a pair of tongs. (If the grate is not hinged, use a pair of heatproof oven mitts to remove the cooking grate.)
3. Add one clean, debarked wood chunk to the burning charcoal on the grate.
 
4. Carefully pour in the new batch of lit charcoal. Use your tongs to corral any stray pieces and maintain the bank of charcoal over half of the charcoal grate.
 
5. Wait five minutes, until the initial smoke from the new charcoal stops billowing, then close or return the cooking grate and the lid to the kettle.
STOP, OR I’LL KICK YOUR ASH
 
THROUGHOUT YOUR EDUCATION IN LOW AND SLOW BARBECUE,
you will make mistakes. Meat will overcook. Fires will burn out. It’s inevitable. Even with the very detailed and simple instructions I’ve given you, things can go wrong. I can’t change the future, but I can help you make it taste better with these fixes for common problems with heat, fire, and smoke in a low and slow cook.
ISSUE N°1:
 
THE CHARCOAL IN THE CHIMNEY WON’T CATCH ON FIRE.
Did you get nervous and shove four or five balls of paper in the bottom of the chimney? Lack of airflow around the paper is the most common reason a chimney won’t light. If the paper only smolders and singes around the edges, but doesn’t go up in full flames, you’ve used too much paper or packed the paper in too tightly. If the paper flares up but dies out quickly, perhaps you’re not using enough paper. You need three full sheets of newspaper to fuel the kind of flames it takes to completely light that bottom layer of charcoal. Also, check the charcoal. Is it wet or does it smell musty? You will have trouble lighting wet charcoal.
ISSUE N°2:
 
THICK, DIRTY SMOKE IS BLOWING OUT OF THE TOP VENT.
Surely you’re not using the
verboten
briquettes. If you are, shame on you. If not, maybe you closed the lid of the firebox or cooker too soon. When you mix lit and unlit natural lump charcoal, the batch needs five or ten minutes to fully catch before that heavy, darker smoke stops billowing. If you close the lid while it’s still catching, two things happen: 1) you choke off the airflow that feeds the initial high heat and gets the charcoal to the clean burning phase and 2) you trap the smoky smolder inside the cooker. If that’s not the case, check your vents to make sure that they are all fully opened. Something is causing the fire to smolder, and it’s probably a blocked vent.
ISSUE N°3:
 
I CHECKED MY CHEAP OVEN THERMOMETER, AND THE GRATE TEMPERATURE IS TOO HOT.
Check your water pan. Usually when the temperature spikes above 275°F, the water level has dipped too low. Refill the water pan, and check it every hour or so—particularly in the kettle and offset cookers, as the aluminum loaf pans are smaller. The pan should be at least half full at all times. The temperature in a cooker will also spike immediately after fresh wood is added to the fire, but this is temporary and should stabilize. Next, check your vents. If it’s a windy day and air is blowing directly into the vents over the charcoal, you may need to create a wind block. Turn the cooker so the vent is not facing into the wind, or partially close the vent.
ISSUE N°4:
 
THE COOKER ISN’T AS HOT AS IT SHOULD BE.
If the cooker is dropping in temperature, your fire is choked or you don’t have enough charcoal burning. Check your vents. Sometimes small fragments of lump charcoal and the dust from the bottom of a bag clog the vents and block airflow. Remove any charcoal pieces from the vent area with a pair of tongs. If there is an excess of charcoal dust, gently stir the charcoal with the tongs to redistribute it. If any vents are partially closed, slide them completely open. Check your charcoal supply, as well. If it’s running low, restock with a full chimney (or half, if you’re on a kettle) of lit charcoal.
ISSUE N°5:
 
WHILE REFILLING THE WATER PAN, I DUMPED WATER ON THE HOT COALS AND NOW THEY’RE SMOLDERING.
If you dumped a considerable amount of water on the charcoal and the coals are barely lit, you’ll need to reignite the fire. Fire up another chimney starter of charcoal. When the charcoal is fully engaged and burning hot and red, pour the lit charcoal over the smoldering batch. While a small amount of water is not good for the fire, if it’s just a splash and most of the charcoal is still burning bright, leave it alone. Or if the damp charcoal is all in one area, use your tongs to pick up a few chunks of burning charcoal and lay them over the smoldering pieces.
THE NO-PEEKING POLICY
 
THERE’S NO DENYING IT:
a cooker at work is irresistible. You will want to touch it. You will want to open the lid to check the temperature or to gaze at that glorious slow-cooking barbecue. You will tell yourself you need to check the water pan—for the fifth time in the last half hour. Low and slow student, you must resist these temptations. Unless instructed or unless something is going terribly wrong—flames are shooting out of the sides or you get a whiff of burning meat—leave your cooker alone. Wrap barbed wire around the handle of the lid, or better yet, just wire the lid shut, so opening and closing it becomes a tedious chore and a reminder of the strict no-peeking policy. Every time you open your cooker, the blast of air burns the charcoal hotter and that precious, stabilized heat is lost. The temperature drops, and you extend the cooking time by about fifteen minutes.
LOW AND SLOW INTUITION
 
IT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS BY NOW
that this is a really low-tech program. A cheap oven thermometer and metal tongs are as fancy as it gets. Anyone who relies on gauges and gadgets or exact temperatures and times will always be disappointed because there are too many variables in low and slow. Everything from the temperature outside and the marbling in the meat to the orneriness of the animal and the condition of your lump charcoal affects the outcome of a cook. That’s why it’s important to stay low-tech and hone your barbecue reflexes. You want to be able to sit in your chair with a beer in your hand and a dog at your feet, knowing that some instinctive response will tell you when everything is right or when something has gone wrong. Like any skill, this takes time. These are some of the cues that will help you read a cook with your senses.
 
SIGHT:
Yes, you’re smoking, but you really don’t want to see a lot of thick smoke billowing out of your cooker. It’s counterintuitive, but a proper, clean-burning fire doesn’t produce much superfluous smoke. If the cooker is running right, you should see only the occasional wisp of thin, blue smoke coming out of the top vent. The smoke will be heavy for the first ten minutes after the charcoal is added to the firebox or grate—which is why you should leave the lid open until it dies down. But if the smoke is heavy and cloudy at a later point in the cook, something is wrong.

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