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Default Made A 55 Gallon Barrel Cooker


"Piedmont" > wrote in message
...
>I made a cooker out of a 55 gallon barrel as has been discussed in the
>past. They work really well as far as holding temperature and not having to
>turn the meat.
>
> What I did was, using a barrel that has a removable lid, drill three
> evenly spaced holes, 1/2 inch big, around the base about 3-4 inch up from
> bottom and then drilled 6 evenly spaced holes, 1/2 inch big in the lid.
>
> I bought the barrel for $7, grill for $16, stainless nuts/bolts for $3,
> used bricks to hold up an old grill upon which I placed a ring of steel to
> contain the coals. I also drilled a tight fitting hole for a probe to go
> in just below the grill level.
>
> I used 3 weber chimney's of unlit briquettes, and one chimney of lit
> briquettes on top on the unlit (of course , I slapped two spare ribs on
> with rub and they were the best I have ever made, and it's the easiest to
> do, the thing practically runs itself, I kid you not, So I highly
> recommend this style of homemade cooker.


Sounds great. That's a lot of coal to use for two racks of ribs though. I
presume the cooker would cook way more on the same fuel load though.

Sorry to hear about your wife. I hope the treatment works. My thoughts are
with you both.


>
> With the hole sizes that I used and the amount of coals that I used it
> came up to 263F and locked in until it started to cool off, the ribs were
> membrane side down and as I said, never turned them.They were so bloody
> tender, too tender. They cook about an hour faster due to the design.
>
> Piedmont
>
> P.S.: My wife Jean is doing ok so far with her lung cancer. Chemo only
> reduced the lung tumor slightly and didn't stop the adrenal gland from
> growing by 35%. Our next treatment is specialized: Shaped Beam Radio
> Surgery, then probably followed up with future chemotherapy. Thank God for
> good medical insurance!