Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons (4 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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CLEANING YOUR COOKER
 
THERE’S REALLY NO WAY TO GET AROUND THE MESS THAT GOES ALONG WITH
cooking with charcoal, but these tips should make the process a little easier.
•
IF YOU HAVE AWSM,
foil the water pan (page 31). Instead of scrubbing the oily drippings out of the water pan after a cook, you can toss the foil.
•
AT THE END OF A COOK,
open all of the vents on your cooker to allow the charcoal to burn through. Closing the vents will smother the charcoal before it burns out, so you’ll have more big pieces of half-burned charcoal to get rid of.
•
CLEAN THE GRATES WHILE THEY’RE STILL HOT.
Charred food bits are easier to remove when they’re hot and crispy.
•
DON’T USE SIMPLE GREEN,
oven cleaner, or any other industrial chemical to clean any part of your cooker. It’s not only unnecessary (fire cooks off all gunk), but these products deteriorate the grate’s metal and any leftover residue could taint the fire or the food from your next cook.
•
BUY A FIVE-GALLON PAINT BUCKET.
This container is big enough to hold the detritus—cooled charcoal and ash, water pan liquid, tin foil—of five to ten cooks.
•
STORE YOUR COOKER WITH THE LID AND VENTS OPEN
to keep moisture and mold down.
 
 
2.
 
LIGHTING THE LOW & SLOW FIRE
 
DEAR STUDENT,
 
IF THERE IS ANY POINT WHEN THE POTENTIAL FOR OVERCOMPLICATING AND
ruining a low and slow cook happens, it is the moment when fire enters the picture. People go to great lengths to try to micromanage and predict every aspect of cooking with fire, but that’s a little bit like trying to predict tomorrow’s winning horse race. If you could, you’d be rich.
As I see it, the biggest problem people have with lighting and maintaining a clean, happy fire is the overabundance of ideas and instructions floating around about the best way to do it. Over the last thirty years or so, the primal, instinctive skill of cooking with fire has been lost to gadgetry and the yen for instant perfection, which leaves no room for error or true learning. Instead of relying on the senses we were born with, it’s all about remote digital thermometers and counting briquettes. Web sites powered by well-meaning barbecue enthusiasts grind on about closing vents an eighth of an inch if the temperature outside drops by seven degrees, adjustments based on the direction the wind is blowing, and other tedious information that stops just short of tracking lunar phases. It’s barbecue for engineers, and although I have nothing against engineers, per se, that kind of tinkering and precision is counterproductive. It’ll drive the average person nuts and scare you off of making barbecue forever.
Cooking barbecue should be fun. That’s why I am so adamant about sticking to the program and not futzing around with my method. I want you to learn to rely on your instincts instead of numbers and to enjoy the process instead of turning it into an engineering project. There are normal temperature fluctuations throughout the cook, and I give you slight tweaks to make along the way based on what your senses are telling you. There is no reason to obsessively monitor and adjust. In fact, the frequency with which you check, open, close, and poke at your cooker is directly proportional to the likelihood that you will screw things up and inversely proportional to the amount of fun you will have making barbecue. Or, the more you mess with the cooker, the more it messes with you. Forget flowchart cooking. Go with the flow.
This is barbecue, not rocket science. Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Gary Wiviott
BARBECUE DEGREES
 
THE TEMPERATURE RANGE
in this program runs higher than what most barbecue “engineers” would deem acceptable. Ask what the ideal grate temperature range is for low and slow, and they’ll say 200°F to 225°F, or 250°F tops. Stay away from these people. They are the ones who fiddle with digital probes and fret about the temperature outside.
As far as you need to know, 250°F to 275°F is a perfectly good range, and drops or spikes in the temperature are no big deal. Why? Because those fluctuations are what give good barbecue its distinct character, and trying to compensate for those inevitable fluctuations will drive you crazy. When you work so hard at keeping a constant, stable temperature in the cooker, you mess up the environment that gives barbecue its delectable, unique qualities. The caramelized bark and crunchy, fatty bites on a rack of ribs don’t come about because you hovered over the cooker and adjusted the vents every time the temperature moved five degrees. The flavor and texture are there because the temperature jumped to 300°F and dropped below 250°F at some point during the cook. Of course, you don’t want the cooker to sit at 300°F for hours, but if you follow your senses (and my directions), you’ll get the kind of easy ebb and flow that makes for great barbecue and a stress-free cook.
HOW MUCH CHARCOAL?
 
UNLIKE MOST BARBECUE EXPERTS,
I won’t give you precise briquette counts because 1) you’re not using briquettes (are you?) and 2) the irregular shape and size of natural lump charcoal makes it harder to give an exact count. That’s why we’re using the chimney starter as a measure.
For the first few cooks, you’ll use about four chimney starters full of charcoal (or, if you’re using a kettle grill, about two chimneys), which is far more than you actually need for these cooks. (Don’t cry over $5 in lump charcoal. The point of using so much is to help you get familiar with how long the charcoal will burn in these cookers.) One chimney of lump charcoal will burn approximately forty-five minutes to one hour if the vents on your cooker are opened according to the instructions. You’ll get at least four to five hours of cooking time out of one complete batch of K.I.S.S. method charcoal in a WSM, one to two hours on an offset smoker, or up to one hour of cooking time on a kettle. For the longer cooks required for spare ribs and pork shoulder, you will restock the charcoal to extend the capacity to nine or ten hours of cooking time.
STARTING YOUR CHIMNEY
 
IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR
and are still thinking about hosing down slow-burning “charcoal” briquettes with lighter fluid to start your cook, please use this book to light the pile. I can’t help you.
You will never touch a bottle of lighter fluid once you learn this simple setup for starting a chimney. It’s not only easier than firing up lighter fluid–soaked briquettes, it’s safer (no flare-ups), cleaner (no harsh chemicals), and less expensive (just three sheets of newspaper). The most important reason of all? Flavor. Your barbecue will never taste like it passed through the exhaust pipe of an eighteen-wheeler. Here’s the foolproof, lighter fluid–free method for sparking up a chimney full of charcoals.
 
 
STEP 1.
Roll three sheets of newspaper into loosely crumpled, concentric circles. Place the paper rings in the bottom of the charcoal chimney, leaving enough space and looseness between the sheets to allow air to flow around the paper.
TIP:
Air will not circulate around twisted or tightly packed paper. Without adequate airflow, the paper will smolder instead of flaming up and catching the charcoal.
 
STEP 2.
Set the chimney on a grate or any other fireproof surface that allows air to flow under the starter.
STEP 3. Fill the chimney almost to the rim with lump charcoal. (If you’re cooking on a kettle grill, only fill the chimney halfway.)
STEP 4.
Light the newspaper in two or three places at the bottom of the chimney.
 
STEP 5.
Stare at the chimney for five to ten minutes. At first, thick swells of dirty, white smoke from the lit newspaper will pour out of the top, sides, and bottom of the chimney. Lump charcoal also crackles and pops as it engages. It’s common for ashes from the burned paper to blow around, too. In about ten minutes (five minutes for the smaller, kettle-bound batch of charcoal), the charcoal should be fully engaged and burning brightly.
STEP 6.
When you see red-hot coals glowing from the holes in the side of the chimney, clear flames shooting from the top, and a gray-white ash edging the charcoal in the top of the starter, the charcoal is ready to pour into the chamber (WSM), or into the firebox (offset), or onto the grate (kettle).

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