Post your "Rookie Mistake Lists"

[1buckie]

waited this long to get a kettle 

Yeah, but you're on it now & THAT'S what counts !!!

I was cooking for about 20 friends yesterday, thought I'd start with a little roasted broccoli.  When asked, I proudly announced it would take about 20 minutes, but the kettle never heated up over about 300.  After about 15 minutes I thought to check the bottom vents, which were closed. 

The good news was that it only took about 30 minutes total.  The great news was that people practically fell out of their chairs exclaiming that it was the best broccoli they'd ever had.  Weber Kettle FTW!

Good Show & Nice Save !!!

The more confident I assume I've become, the more likely the simple stuff seems to elude notice.....

[Chasing_smoke]

A few weeks back I decided we were having pizza for dinner. The dough took its time rising and all day I was thinking about this pizza for dinner. I watched a few videos on how to stretch dough to make a perfect pizza.

It was time too cook finally, I fired up the kettle and setup the weber entertainment center outside. I spent 20 minutes getting this dough stretched and absolutely perfect. This pizza dough looked like it was made at a high end restaurant. I was extremely proud about this pizza. So I sauced it, added out favorite toppings and cheese. This was it the pizza I had been working towards perfecting for a couple of months. Now to get it to the grill, turn on the DVD player and bask in the pizza awesomeness I just made. Well I forgot the most important step...

Before you add toppings you have to transfer the plain dough to a pizza peel. A bit of corn meal helps it slide off. I destroyed the pizza trying to get it on the pan, then completed the final death of what was a great pizza transferring it to the grill. So I present what I made I call it pizza slop...



Lesson learned transfer the dough onto a corn meal coated pan or pizza peel before adding toppings!

It was a good Strombolish type of meal, but I haven't made a crust that nice again.


"my kettle is more powerful it will do almost anything."

[Aawa]

I made the mistake once of not checking the fridge before lighting the grill off.

I started the chimney and opened the fridge and there was no beer in it.   

[1buckie]

OK....let's dredge up an oldie thread........


Did some pork chops, chicken, corn on the cob & a tater packet for dinner...came out great & with a bunch of coals still left, thought I'd do up a batch of smoked corn & black bean salsa......

Belly too full, I passed out on the couch & the dawga (who were too full also, took a nap) woke up a few hours later to this:





Did up another, much bigger batch a few days later that went much better....






General recipe:

http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/bbq-food-pics/smoked-corn-and-black-bean-salsa/msg13616/#msg13616

[MikeRocksTheRed]

A few weeks back I decided we were having pizza for dinner. The dough took its time rising and all day I was thinking about this pizza for dinner. I watched a few videos on how to stretch dough to make a perfect pizza.

It was time too cook finally, I fired up the kettle and setup the weber entertainment center outside. I spent 20 minutes getting this dough stretched and absolutely perfect. This pizza dough looked like it was made at a high end restaurant. I was extremely proud about this pizza. So I sauced it, added out favorite toppings and cheese. This was it the pizza I had been working towards perfecting for a couple of months. Now to get it to the grill, turn on the DVD player and bask in the pizza awesomeness I just made. Well I forgot the most important step...

Before you add toppings you have to transfer the plain dough to a pizza peel. A bit of corn meal helps it slide off. I destroyed the pizza trying to get it on the pan, then completed the final death of what was a great pizza transferring it to the grill. So I present what I made I call it pizza slop...



Lesson learned transfer the dough onto a corn meal coated pan or pizza peel before adding toppings!

It was a good Strombolish type of meal, but I haven't made a crust that nice again.


"my kettle is more powerful it will do almost anything."

Oh man that sucks!  I always make more dough than I need in case something like this happens to me.  At least it was still edible.

[MikeRocksTheRed]

OK....let's dredge up an oldie thread........


Did some pork chops, chicken, corn on the cob & a tater packet for dinner...came out great & with a bunch of coals still left, thought I'd do up a batch of smoked corn & black bean salsa......

Belly too full, I passed out on the couch & the dawga (who were too full also, took a nap) woke up a few hours later to this:





Did up another, much bigger batch a few days later that went much better....






General recipe:

http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/bbq-food-pics/smoked-corn-and-black-bean-salsa/msg13616/#msg13616

I always see people asking about how long to cook things and a common response of "it's done when it's done."  In this case it looks like it was done a few hours ago!!!!  The recipe sounds great though...I'll definitely give it a shot.

[Cellar2ful]

I have had a Baby Q (called a Q 100 and now Q 1000) since 2004. When they first were produced, they were sold with no fold out shelf.  After a couple of years, Weber started selling ones that had fold out plastic shelves.  I called Weber and ordered two of the shelves.  I installed them as soon as they were delivered and folded them in on top of the cooking grates as designed for storage.  I walked in, informed my wife I installed the shelves on her Q and said "Now remember, you have to fold out the shelves before you fire up the grill".  See the Q is mainly her grill that she cooks vegetables on. You can see where this is going.  That night my wife goes out and turns on the grill to preheat it, without ever opening the lid.  After 10 minutes I go out to start the charcoal in the kettle and see a tremendous amount of smoke billowing from the Baby Q.  Then the "Oh Shit" moment hits me.  I grab the lid on the Q, throw it open and quickly fold out the shelves with tongs. Luckily the shelves were not yet melted to the grates, but they were too badly damaged to be of any use.  It was my rookie mistake not to have left the shelves folded out for use so my wife would have gotten use to them being on the Q.  I reordered a second set of shelves that are still installed and undamaged on the Q.

[btomlin]

I stick bacon directly on the SS grates of my genesis and haven't had an issue with flare ups of any kind....yet.  I do wheel it away from the house before cooking it though.  I would have never dreamed of doing this with my old Sear's grill.  That thing was a flaring up nightmare.

My biggest mistakes, thus far, is using a "cheap-o" chimney starter and getting into a hurry, ie. not letting the grill pre-heat as long as it likely should.  I have since purchased a weber starter which is sooo much better(bottom briquettes aren't burnt up before top briquettes are started now) and I have increased pre-heating from 1 beer to 2 beers....sometimes 3. 

[OGlenn]

Great thread, thanks for reviving it

No photos of my rookie move, but a couple weeks ago I decided to reheat a rack of ribs on the kettle since it was ridiculously hot and humid and I didnt want to use the oven. Dropped a lighter cube in the corner of the smoke and sear and threw the charcoal in. Got an emergency call couple minutes later, so decided to just throw the rack on the grill and let the temps come up while I was gone.  Got back home 45-50 minutes later, temps were up to 250, ribs were warmed, so I took them off. Got them in the house and was wondering what smelled like an ashtray. Took a bite of a rib and spit it back out... tasted like cigarette with bbq sauce  on it... lesson learned, NEVER put your meat on until the pit gets up to temp!! That white smoke leaves a nasty taste... In retrospect, my gasser would've been the right tool for the job, but I store stuff under the hood for my kettles and didn't want to bother.

[Travis]

The first time I cooked ribs I cooked them over direct heat, sauced from the start for about an hour, then pulled them. I'll leave that right there for ya.


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[kettlebb]

First spatchcock bird. Cooked over direct heat. Burned hands twice while moving Maverick probes, chicken kind of fell apart but was edible. Must have had my brain removed that day.


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[TheDude]

Wish I had a good one, but I found this place first. First few cooks, I piled a
Bunch of coals, doused in fluid and lit. I always knew to let
It ash over, so never really had an issue with lighter fluid taste. But that gives you a 4000° grill, with no indirect spots. After a few cooks, I knew this thing could do more. I don't do a lot of social media (I mod a piranha forum). Couple google searches and here I am now.

[MINIgrillin]

This thread is hilarious. 4 pork butts in the oven...LMAO!

[MikeRocksTheRed]

I had a mistake last night making pizza....not sure at this point I would call it a rookie mistake since I've made enough pizzas to know better.  I spread my dough on my butcher block cutting board like I always do then proceeded to add all of the toppings.  It was one of the roundest pizzas of the four that I did last night.  Then I realized my mistake.....I usually spread the dough then fold it up and move it to my wood peel for assembly.  If you don't move your pizza to the peel before adding toppings it (in my experience) is almost impossible to get it onto the peel.  So I tried to get it on my wood peel by lifting the edge and pushing my peel under, but that wasn't going to work at all.  I then tried to do the same thing with my metal peel since it is a lot thinner.  That wasn't happening either.  I was going to end up with a scrunched up chunk of sauced and cheese dough.  I stepped back for a minute or two to try to let the panic subside.  Next I decided to see if I could slide a piece of parchment paper under the pizza.  This actually was working great.  I had to make sure to hold the front edge really tight to both sides of the pizza then move the parchment paper towards the pizza while doing a left to right sawing motion.  This was working great and I was able to get the paper a little more than halfway through the pizza then it started to scrunch again.  I grabbed another sheet and did the same thing from the opposite side with no problems.  Now my pizza was sitting on two piece of parchment paper and I was able to carefully pick it up and place it on my peel.  Once on the peel I figured the best way to get the paper out was by doing it magician style.  One quick fast pull making sure I didn't life up as I did it.  Well, it didn't work.  My pizza flipped over so fast it wasn't even funny.  Well, time to move on to the next pizza, right?  Nope.  Luckily when the pizza flipped over it happened so fast and it was the entire pizza, not just the half that was on that piece of parchment paper.  I was able to pick up the entire thing under the parchment paper and carefully flip it over onto the peel.  When I pulled the parchment off I had a few slices of pepperoni that needed to be relocated, but other than that the pizza was in perfect condition.  It actually ended up being the best of the four pizzas I did last night.  Phew!!!!!

As I am sitting here typing this I am thinking to myself that I will never make that mistake, but in reality I know it will happen.  I think moving forward as a little bit of insurance I will always put parchment paper on the cutting board I am using to stretch dough so I have a backup plan already in place if I forget to move my dough to the peel before assembling it.

[fedex]

This.