Chicken on a Weber Jumbo Joe

Aug 01 2013

I never thought I would be cooking on a charcoal grill. A friend, Sandman, bought a Pit Barrel Cooker a while back and gave me some samples cooked on it. I see a lot of great cooks on charcoal in Lets Talk BBQ too. I decided to get one but didn’t want to put a lot of money in one. I decided on the Weber Jumbo Joe. I had also looked at an Old Smokey but I liked the more solid build of the Weber for about the same price.

Thursday evening I ordered one from Lowes for in store pick up. This morning I went to Lowes and for $87 I left with the Jumbo Joe, some charcoal baskets, a bag of charcoal and some lighter cubes.

It went together pretty easy and I had a metal table to set it on. I was happy my two grill grates fit it OK.

I like that the handle acts as a lid holder and it works great.

I had a split friar to do on it, brined for 3 hours and air dried in fridge for two hours seasoned with Stubbs chili lime.

I set it up with one charcoal basket for indirect cooking. I lit it at a little before 4:00 and by 4:30 it was ready for the chickens. Just after I got the chicken on it started getting dark in the NW. No rain was predicted! The pellet Gods must be angry! I went in and checked the radar; a small cell and was headed here. The only rain in all of Ohio!

I had enough room on the deck to move my smoker and set the Kettle on my fireproof mat if the rain came. It looked like it might stay north but it didn’t. I moved the kettle but the rain only lasted about 10 minutes. I left it there for the rest of the cook. I was able to maintain 280 to 300 deg. pretty close.

The chicken was done at 6:00; I did a quick sear over the coals and took it in to serve. I had potato salad, a fresh tomato salad with cottage cheese and fresh basil over it and some bread and butter. It sure did taste good!

This little grill will not be replacing my Traeger pellet smoker but when I get hungry for some charcoal chicken I can do it and want to do some burgers and kabobs on it once in a while.

All put together

Tomatoes and Chicken

Chickens on

Monitoring temps

All done with a quick sear

Fresh tomato salad

My Plate