Lighting 4 Weber kettles

Charcoal cookers (such as Weber Kettles)
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hjl
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:17 pm

Lighting 4 Weber kettles

Post by hjl »

If you were using 4 Weber kettles. You know one for beef one for lamb one for pork and one for chicken. the vegs can be done in the oven inside.
How would you go about lighting them? Char baskets in each kettle? At least that way they would be ready to go around the same time. I have 2 x heat beads chimney boosters so could light 2 chimneys with that. But how to light the other 2? Another option is to light the whole bag of heat beads in one spot and use a shovel to fill the chimneys as required. A bit like the camp oven guys do with coals. Sounds messy. Thoughts.
Cheers
hjl
Lovey
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Re: Lighting 4 Weber kettles

Post by Lovey »

G'day HJL,
A few options for you. The baskets would be the go if you wanted them all ready to cook at the same time, then remove each piece of meat when it's cooked and put it in an esky/icebox ready for serving. Otherwise, I'd work out the length of cooking time, longest to shortest and light them in that order then you can serve straight from the kettle. The chimneys only take about 20 minutes to get roaring, so not that long to wait between batches of coals.
All the best,
Steve
titch
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Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2010 12:51 pm
Location: Sth East Melbourne

Re: Lighting 4 Weber kettles

Post by titch »

hjl wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:02 pm If you were using 4 Weber kettles. You know one for beef one for lamb one for pork and one for chicken. the vegs can be done in the oven inside.
How would you go about lighting them? Char baskets in each kettle? At least that way they would be ready to go around the same time. I have 2 x heat beads chimney boosters so could light 2 chimneys with that. But how to light the other 2? Another option is to light the whole bag of heat beads in one spot and use a shovel to fill the chimneys as required. A bit like the camp oven guys do with coals. Sounds messy. Thoughts.
Cheers
hjl
Split the 2 chimneys between the 4 and top them up with unlit ones
They should then come up to temp at the same time
4 kettles? your going to be busier , than a one legged man in a bum kicking contest
Cheers
Titch
Davo
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Re: Lighting 4 Weber kettles

Post by Davo »

It's a very broad question really, just by stipulating the types of meat is not enough, what cuts are they are, will you be doing some low n slow, grilling or roasting, all requiring different set ups and a different amount of coals.

If this was me, I would assign each kettle to one meat type then set each up to the way in which you want to cook.

Say for example if you're doing a Beef Brisket, then obviously you're wanting to set up the snake method for low n slow, take your time with this because the brisket will take the longest to cook, pending on size but most low n slow will set you back anywhere from 6 hours to 15.

Lamb you might want to roast so that may take up to 2 hours again, pending size. Roast pork about the same but if you want good crackling, you'll need a hotter fire to start. Both Pork and Lamb can be done using baskets with about 25 briquettes per side for lamb and 32 briquettes per side for Pork.

Chicken can be done so many ways so I'd be putting this on last and setting up how you want it cooked. How many chickens, how are they cut? wings? drum sticks or whole chickens? if say 2 chickens, butterfly them and you can fit 2 indrect grilling....2 chooks one side and fire other side....hot fire.

The Charcoal baskets are great as you can set them up in either direct or indirect fashion.....you can use 1 or 2 pending on heat needed.

Try not to overthink it.....if you're not sure, just stick with indirect v's direct by shifting the baskets.

Cheers

Davo
Moderator/ Admin

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hjl
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:17 pm

Re: Lighting 4 Weber kettles

Post by hjl »

Thanks for the ideas everyone.
Cheers
hjl
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