One of my daughters got me the Slow ‘n Sear for Christmas and I’ve waiting to break it out. I also wanted to try out the double-decker idea I had for my Weber 26. I got a cooking grate from a 22.5 WSM and added some long lag bolts so that I could have a second cooking surface. I figured between these two, I could turn the Big Kahuna into monster cooker.
A couple of weeks ago my BBQ team was having a planning meeting for the upcoming season and I decided this was the perfect opportunity to try out my new system, as well as a new rub. Those ribs took a little longer to cook than I had anticipated (7½ hours) and I had to re-stoke the SnS twice during the cook.
I emailed Dave at AbcBBQ. He got to me the next day and gave me some suggestions. I’m going to be frank, I took some and rejected others. But, I really do feel that I got good customer service from Dave.
Last week Publix had a deal on St. Louis, so I decided to run the play again using some of Dave’s suggestions. I rubbed two down with my regular competition formula and two down with Big Dick’s Rib Rub and let them rest overnight in the fridge.
The next day, I set up Kahuna and got it going. The ribs went on about 11:00.
At about the two hour mark, I swapped the bottom and top racks. I was running about 225º-250º on the main grate. I spritzed the ribs with a combination of apple juice, maple syrup, and Black Jack about once an hour at this point.
I pulled them off at 5:00 and wrapped them in plastic, then foil, then into a cooler covered w/a towel for the trip over to my parents’ house. Once there, they went into a 200º oven until serving time, about another hour.
Everyone chowed down, but had to vote first. It was unanimous, Rib Rub just edged out my current rub. So, that’s what I’m taking on the road this year.
As far as the SnS, I’m a little more comfortable with it, and am going to continue trying to dial it in for my style of cooking.
My biggest concern is I’m not getting anywhere near the time out of my charcoal that I thought I would. This was about a six hour cook and I added briquettes twice. I maybe could’ve gotten away with only doing it once because I do have some left over after the shutdown. I’m hoping it was just that both rib cooks have been in pretty frigid temps. This weekend the plan is for two chuckies and we’re supposed to be well into the sixties on Saturday.
BD
