I have been admiring this thing for a couple of weeks now, time to get acquainted!
I wanted to be able to go low and slow with this kettle, and to that end, fabricated a charcoal basket. It holds a good amount of charcoal. Here it is all welded up:
The setup: Basket filled with charcoal and wine barrel oak, fire brick border, drip pans, and a brick to counterbalance the whole thing (thanks for the idea buckie). If you look close, I put a firebrick underneath the charcoal grate in the middle to prevent sagging.
I cook on a wooden deck, so safety is a primary concern. I have a few SS performer shelves hanging around
, so I used one to prevent hot ash from dropping on the deck. I would be cooking with two vents closed, and one open 1/2 way. Ran my temp wires through the vent:
Pork butts injected, and dry rubbed the day before:
I started the cook at 9:00 PM. I realize you can't see this, but had to record "first coals":
I cooked with the top vent about 1/4 open. The ranch stayed right on temp (225 - 250) all night! At 5 am, I decided drip beans were in order. Bushes with chopped onion, chopped peppers, pork from my last cook, honey, molasses, garlic, salt and pepper.
Still having room to spare, I decide turds were in order. Whole japs with cream cheese, honey dry rub, and little cheddar smokies.
At 8:00 am, I had to put more charcoal in the basket to continue the cook, meaning my charcoal basket is good for about 11 hours. Not bad!
After loading 1/2 a basket of charcoal and some more oak, I put the turds over the drip beans to get the bacon drippings:
Beans are done:
At 12:00 the port was 205 - it was a 15 hour cook. Starting to pull the pork. It has the best bark on it!:
The payoff. I cheated and used some of the pulled pork from the drip beans to make sliders for breakfast, along with turds and a side of drips:
If pulled pork sliders, drip beans, and turds for breakfast is wrong, I don't wanna be right....
Very happy with the cook. The Ranch is a keeper - very easy to use with a ton of capacity. I could have easily doubled the amount of pork, beans, and turds using the same setup.
Winz
Topic: First Ranch Cook (Read 3154 times)
