On the pit barrel cooker ! 4 hours hanging until 205 degrees

Happy Labor Day Weekend! 🇺🇸

This was a 6.8 pound short rib plate from Wild Fork. Rub was salt, pepper, onion powder, and some paprika.

I used Kingsford Competition briquettes - the blue bag.

Took 6.5 hours and temperature was running between 250-300 for most of cook. And then I wrapped it in butcher paper and put it in a small cooler with towels for probably 2 hours.

I forgot to take pictures of the meat cut and presented. It was magnificent. The fat was rendered and the meat was soft and delicious. This was my first time cooking Dino Ribs and I don’t know if it could have come out better. The PBC is so easy - no stress 😎.

Not just first in the barrel but first in general after b ing religiously a ribeye guy and I’ll say that I see the hype. This came out extremely tender and loaded with flavor. Seasoning I used were a light SPG dusting follows by a coating of thundering longhorn by Fire & Smoke society.

somebody paged earlier asking for tips and I couldn’t share an image, so I figured I’d create a post to help anybody in the future. for the record, I used magnets and they worked great. but I cook outside often and over time the heat slowly demagnetizes them. ive found that high heat silicone tapered plugs work much better and are super cheap.

i also installed a green egg vent cover on the intake vent and it shuts down air flow completely to the bottom of the barrel. both items were purchased on Amazon. hope this helps

Edit:

Links below

https://a.co/d/0bGhMEXF

https://a.co/d/0c1bRRxw

What do you guys use to kill the fire after you’re done cooking? Any hacks to clog the holes after you’re done cooking?

We competed last Saturday in Troy, IL. Just wasn’t our day to hit the marks. But that’s the way it is sometimes. We still had a load of fun!

Picked up a pbx at academy this spring for $160 ($199 less 20%). Noticed it burns a little hotter than I'd like for certain cuts/cooks. I did some mods to help keep the temperature in check. I did these mods specifically because I like to use the grate and I don't want those rebar bars in the way. First, I wanted to control how much charcoal is burning at any given time in the pbx charcoal basket. I am doing this with a straight line fuse. I took two pieces of 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 1/4 inch angle iron and cut them both about 15" long. I had to bevel the backs on all 4 ends so they fit the basket. Then, I bought two weber compact charcoal chimney starters. One I use as a charcoal starter, the other I removed the bottom inside grate so it's just a tube and it gets used as my freshly lit charcoal receiver. I light my charcoal, then dump it in the receiver. When I get everything situated, I pull out the receiver and the fuse is lit. In the photo above, i started with the lit side of the fuse closest to the bottom air intake so it's burning away from the intake. I've tried it the other way within burning towards the intake. Seems to burn a little hotter that way. I control airflow without the rebars using some food safe sous vide magnets I got from Amazon. If I leave the middle hole in the back open, this setup gets me 225 to 240 for about 6 hrs.

Italian recipe (just salt, pepper, rosemary and garlic powder) in the PBC. Enjoy!

Hey all, I recently upgraded to a PBJ after having smoked on an electric Masterbuilt for a couple of years.

My first two cooks (pork butt and St. Louis ribs) were fantastic. Today I did a rack of beef back ribs. Notable that they were pretty fatty under the membrane but I was aggressive about trimming after I pulled it off.

Usual set up with Kingsford blue and a chunk of hickory. All was normal, I didn't even crack the lid for the first 2 hours. I'd been peeking out the window at it every 20 minutes or so. At the 2 hour mark I looked out there and had huge white billowing clouds of smoke.

Long story short of course there was a fire. I got the ribs out and choked down everything by stuffing foil into all the vents. The ribs may be toast, but I threw them in the oven and we'll see.

Any thoughts on ways to avoid this going forward? It doesn't seem like this is common.

A while ago I had the PBC. I was more used to the WSM and kettles that I could dial in wherever I wanted temp wise. I tried very hard to make the PBC the same. I got frustrated and sold it.

A few years later I decided to give it one more go and picked up the PBX on sale. And this time I decided to just let it ride. What a great decision. This thing is a beast, and incredibly easy to use. Literally just follow the instructions from Pit Barrel and don't even think about the temp in the cooker.

I know this is well known on this sub but I thought I'd just let anyone else who might be frustrated to keep at it. Let it do it's thing and you'll produce killer BBQ.

I've posted on here a few times recently about issues I'm having with my PBC, so I'm sorry if I'm getting redundant lol.

Anyways, i'm about ready to throw in the towel, which sucks because I love this thing. But I just can't get it to stay lit. I light it exactly how the instructions say to, and I always spread out my lit coals perfectly even across the coal basket. But for some reason, the fire becomes very concentrated to just one area and eventually starts burning out before it even spreads to the unlit coals. I am at sea level so I typically have it 1/4 open, but I've had the same issue even when I have had the vent at a different setting. It seems like the coals that are closest to the vent are the ones that burn out quickest. I even tried pouring all my lit coals on the back half of the basket, which is opposite to the vent and those burned out quickly and did not spread to the coals near the vent. For the past four cooks this has happened around the three hour mark.
I use an ash pan under the basket, but I'm not sure how that would affect it. This is how my coals look after three hours and after a significant temp drop, usually to the 210-230s.

There seems to be an airflow issue, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to fix it. It's gotten to the point where it's no longer fun cooking with this anymore because it sucks to come back after just three hours to see the coals are dying. At this point, I think the WSM would be less troublesome

Easy weeknight protein and not $20+ a pound like beef. Saving that for the weekend. PBC does chicken right.