I previously posted that I had received a Pit Barrel Cooker (PBC), and I gave my initial
thoughts. Well, the proof is obviously in the pudding, or the meat in this case, so here I'll
tell you about the maiden voyage.
I'd seen the videos on the Pit Barrel Cooker Company site that extolled the virtues of
chicken and tri-tip cooked on the PBC. Being a huge fan of both, I decided that this would
be a great first cook. Each are great barbecued meats, but they are also sensitive to
overcooking.
The PBC comes with a 4.7-ounce shaker bottle of each of their "All-Purpose Pit Rub" and
"Beef & Game Pit Rub" seasonings. I tasted the rubs, and they seem well-suited to their
advertised purposes. The all-purpose rub was a little on the spicy side, but I love spicy.
For my first test cook I decided to use seasonings with which I am very familiar. The
thought here is that I would eliminate the added variable of seasoning and focus on the
cooking. I felt that it was important to start from a somewhat known baseline of flavor
profile.
I started by splitting the chickens (4 1/2 lbs each), trimming the tri-tip (about 3 1/2 lbs
each), dusting all of the meat evenly (the chicken more heavily) with seasoning, and
refrigerating them for two hours.
Note: I inserted the hooks while the coals were starting.
Next, per the instructions, I filled the charcoal basket level with Kingsford® Original
(blue bag) charcoal, doused it with Kingsford® lighter fluid, put it on the PBC and lit it.
I'll admit that using lighter fluid is not as demonic as most of my barbecue brothers would
argue. However, letting it burn for only 20 minutes is a little unsettling. In the future I'll light
about a third of a chimney of coals outside the cooker, let them ash over/gray, and then add
them to the unlit coals in the basket. That's the process that I use in my UDS cookers (a
quasi- Minion method).
Here's how the coals looked after 20 minutes.
The instructions indicated that the chicken would take somewhere between two and 2 1/2
hours. The video at their site states that two hours is fine for young or full-size chickens,
but the instructions in the box state 2 1/2 hours.
This left me wondering when to plan to add the tri-tip to the cooker. I figured I'd just wing it
(pardon the pun) the first time and try to time it by internal temperature. I was cooking for
another family and I had a set delivery time, so I didn't have a lot of margin for error. This, by
the way, is not a good plan for a first cook on a new cooker.
I let the chickens cook for about an hour and five minutes, then I added the tri-tip.
The way the PBC held an even temperature really impressed me. I stuck the probe of my
Thermoworks TW8060 in the hole next to one of the rods and it held 290º +/- 10º for the
entire cook and then some.
The chicken was done in an hour and forty minutes (165º breast/181º thigh), and the tri-tip
was done after only 35 minutes (135º in the thickest portion). The chicken would have been
way overcooked if I'd have followed even the video instructions (two hours). I think that
perhaps I was using smaller chickens. I can see where a larger chicken (say 5 1/2 lbs,
pre-trim) would probably be just about perfect at two hours.
In the end, the PBC produced great results, despite a little bit of cooking time cipherin' on my
part. The tri-tip was just about edge-to-edge perfectly medium-rare.
The chicken had great color and was generally moist and juicy, with slightly crispy skin.
Both my delivery family and I felt that the breast was dry, but not so much that it was bad.
We both thought the flavor was outstanding all the way around.
Overall I felt that my first cook on the PBC met my lofty expectations. It lived up to its
set-and-forget goal, and the results were great. Of course there is always a learning curve
with any new cooker, and I greatly look forward to putting this thing through its paces.
Here are some notes that I made throughout the cook:
- The side handles stay cool enough to rest your thermometer on.
- The lid handle stays at about body temperature.
- The feet stay cool to the touch.
------
John
