Hot BBQ Advice Sought!

[ribtickler]

Rather than ease myself into the art of charcoal bbqing, I decided last w/e to try my hand at my first baby back ribs on my new weber 57cm otp. Having made up and applied the rub they sat happily on the grill for about 3hours cooking gently  at appx 250-300f. The end product was fantastic and my other half thought there was a madman jumping up and down in the back garden waving bones about - however, twas just me having a "eureka!" moment!

The advice I'm after is in the pre-cooking process, ie getting the bbq to the right temp. I used the chimney and filled it half full of weber premium charcoal, putting an equivalent amount in the bbq for indirect grilling. I managed to get the chimney going on the second or third attempt (novice!) and poured the coals when ready onto those in the kettle. The temp soared to 550-600f  which immediately gave me the problem of calming it down before I put the ribs on. I decided to use a water spray and also closed the bottom vents which luckily eventually brought it down to a manageable temp.

I'm just wondering how you low n slow guys(or gals!) go about controlling that initial heat surge? And what could I have done better to start with?!

Thanks in advance!
Kev.

[Swindon_Ed]

Start off with less hot coals, 8 or 12 will be fine and then place them on a bed of unlit coals which are banked on one side of the BBQ, then manage the vents to bring it upto the temp' you want

[ribtickler]

Cheers Ed
Given that they would need topping up over a slow cook over a few hours, how many unlit coals in the BBQ to start with, would be a good number to get things going, or is it a case of how long is a piece of string?!

ps Not that I've as many, but how do you get the details of your bbqs underneath your post?! (sussed! )

[keith157]

Ahh now that's a question I can answer, it's twice the length from one end to the middle. As for the coals, back to Ed

[ribtickler]

Mmm....does it matter if you've got metric or imperial string though

[Swindon_Ed]

Given that they would need topping up over a slow cook over a few hours, how many unlit coals in the BBQ to start with, would be a good number to get things going, or is it a case of how long is a piece of string?!

About 60 decent quality briquettes should give you a burn time around 6-7 hrs if cooking at 250f

[ribtickler]

Thanks for the reply Ed!

And for what it's worth, Keith as well!

[keith157]

Nope, feet, inches, centimetres, archin (russian imperialist measurement) it matters not a jot

[BBQFanatic]

The formulae I used on a otp, is 2/3rd of the Weber chimney starter of briquettes poured into the corner of the otp. Then as ed points out, 6-12 well lit briquettes in the starter dumped on top. Start with all vents at 1/3. Depending on conditions I would sometimes open top and bottom vents to 1/2, but generally not the case. The natural temp of the otp is between 180 and 220 degrees c. If you use a lit starter the temp will easily hit 300c and maintain a heat of 250-300 degrees c for 45 mins
so the key is to start cool and bring temp up. Starting high, you will be fighting and also means that you need to top upduring the cook.. Good luck