HOWDY,
Been grilling for a few years, just steaks, brats, burgers, standard direct grilling.
Just got a new Weber Performer 22 1/2" charcoal grill and decided to try my hand at some BBQ. You can see the attached pic of my setup. Started with about 20 coals and a couple of chunks of soaked Mesquite. I also had a container of water above the coals. My test was with 3 decent size country pork ribs and a couple of bone in chicken breast. I used a standard rub on both. I added a couple of coals every 1/2-1 hours and kept the wood up also. I was able to keep the temp in the dome at about240-250 at all times.

It took about 6-7 hours to complete the cooking. Is this normal? From what I have read this seemed like a long time. I suspect I opened the lid too often. I'm thinking I need to watch the temp and only open when it starts to drop a bit to add more coals, check the wood and mop. Does this sound correct? Also, how does my setup look, anything look wrong?

Lastly, I am planning on smoking a slab of baby back ribs and a whole 4 pound chicken on Monday. Any advice or am I on the right track? How long should these items take to cook, roughly?
THANKS MUCH, looking forward to getting this down.
Lakedawgs

Lakedawgs,
Welcome to the Source!
First - that's a beautiful kettle you've got there, pardner! They don't come any better!
Yes - I'd agree that 6-7 hours is much too long. These pieces of meat should have been done in half the time. You do have to keep the lid closed! Resist that temptation to keep "peeking"! Also - you can 86 the water pan over the coals. Totally NOT needed.

You can try cooking the rack for about 2 hours, then wrapping them in foil for another 1-1/2 hour, and finally another hour unfoiled. You can search our site here for many tips on what we call the 3:2:1 method, which I've cut back for you because babybacks need less time due to smaller meat content. Your chicken I won't profess to know as much about on a kettle - I've done ribs before but never a whole chicken on a kettle (my kettle has been retired - I use a dedicated smoker for ribs, rotisserie on the grill for my whole birds).
Your temps could also be just a tad lower - 225 -235 would maybe be a bit closer. Of course, you do NOT want the meat directly over the hot coals, this would be indirect cooking. I suspect your foil and water pan restricted your heat too much in your first cook.
I'm sure others with more kettle skills might input some better advice here. Kudos of having the courage to dive right in there though! Good luck with the next one!

Mike

Thanks for the reply,
I have heard that the water above the coals will help keep the temp down and help the meat stay moist with the steam, is that not true? I have essentially ruined my wife's Pyrex measuring cup you see in the pic. Any way to get that smoke residue off? I had also heard a foil barrier next to the coals help keep the direct heat off the meat on that side of the grill, thoughts?

I'm thinking of cutting the chicken in half and laying both sides flat on the grill.
THANKS
Lakedawgs

ON the waterm you should be able to control the temp just by adjusting the air flow, with a water pan you end up using so much heat energy to heat the water that ther is not much left over to actually cook the meat. You also need to put a temp gage on the grates to find out what the real temp is and adjust accordingly.

Barkeepers friend will remove the smoke residue from the pyrex cup...

Bluesin