How to do a great  pork roast on a charcoal kettle. This month’s theme of the Christmas Pork Roast on arguably the best roasting BBQ of them all, the Weber 57cm Kettle.

 First things first, let’s set up our Kettle BBQ.

Conventional barbecues can only grill or fry the food; Weber kettles are able to do this too, but they are also able to roast and bake. The picture shows a cross section of a Weber barbecue kettle which is ready to

roast or bake. You will notice that the coals providing the heat are placed out to the side. When roasting or baking, the food is placed on the upper grill between the two fires, directly above a foil drip pan.

This method of cooking is called indirect cooking. It will be used for the majority of foods you cook.

  

 

Use the Right Fuel
It is recommended that you use briquettes specially designed for use with Weber barbecues. In Australia, Heat Beads are the preferred brand of barbecue fuel and firelighters.

 How to prepare your Weber barbecue for indirect cooking:

 

1.    Open the top and bottom vents on the barbecue, and remove the lid.

2.    Position the bottom grill so that its steel rungs run across the barbecue rather than from front to back, this ensures that the hot baskets are not located under the handles when your fires are alight.

3.    Place 4 firelighters (2 on each side) in the cavities provided by your grill.

Place the Char-basket fuel holders on the grill and fill them with the required number of briquettes.

 Lighting the Indirect Fire:

1.    Light the firelighters, make sure that all of the firelighters are burning well (sometimes a strong wind can blow them out if they are not burning well).

2.    Once the firelighters are alight, move the baskets to the centre of the grill, over the flames.

The barbecue may now be left until the coals are ready to cook. It will take about 40 minutes for the fire to establish itself. During this time, make sure that the lid is left off the barbecue and all vents are open. This allows more oxygen to reach the coals, which helps establish the fire faster.

On no account should you place the lid on the barbecue or close the vents while the fire is getting ready for cooking. Your barbecue is not the same as an oven. Putting the lid on during the lighting period will quite often put the fire out due to lack of oxygen.

  

 How Much Barbecue Fuel You Need to Use
To obtain the correct temperatures in your Weber kettle you should use the following barbecue briquette quantities.

Briquette Quantities (Indirect)
57cm kettles	72 briquettes (36 each side)

We suggest that you count the briquettes when preparing your first few indirect cooking fires. After a while you will become familiar with the quantity required and you will be able to judge it visually.

go out and you can then use the left over fuel next time. Remember to shake excess ash off the fuel before re-lighting it.

Here’s a final tip: 

Once you’ve finished cooking, closing the vents will prevent oxygen entering the kettle. The fire will die down completely. You can re-use or dispose of the remaining coals.

  Now that the BBQ is ready, let’s get our Pork Roast ready.

 First we ensure the roast is completely defrosted, a good tip is to allow the roast to sit in the bottom of our fridge overnight uncovered allowing the roast to dry out a-bit.

 Next we towel the meat dry (paper towel), then using a shape knife make diagonal scores in the skin across or vertically down 5 to 10mm apart and about 3mm deep. We then rub good sea salt into the skin and scatter with rosemary.

 The roast is now ready to place into our Weber Kettle BBQ, all you need to do is place the roast in the middle of the grill above the foil drip pan, then we place the Kettle lid back onto the BBQ, ensuring that the vent is set in the middle and not over the briquettes.

 We now have the top and bottom vents open full, this is cooking on high, and we do this for 30 – 40 minutes so the skin can turn to “crackling”. After 40 minutes we close the top and bottom vents by a third, medium cooking, and we now cook for 50 – 60 minutes for each kilogram of meat.

 One of the great traditions that go with Pork at Christmas is Apple sauce, and the best way to do it is once the Pork roast is done and is resting, place a saucepan directly above the hot briquettes, add in 3 small cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced, a tablespoon of water, ¼ tablespoon of allspice and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. Now cover and cook gently until soft and pulpy. And now you have a great apple sauce to go with a great Christmas Pork Roast.

 

Important Tips to remember.

 1)    Don’t overcook pork when roasting, a simple check is with a skewer or fork, push into meat, and if the juice

     is clear, the pork is cooked.

2)    Let the roast sit for 20 minutes before you cut and serve, experts advise resting your meat allows the fibers

     to relax and helps the meat to hold in the juices.

3)    If crackling doesn’t work, when pop crackling into the microwave between two paper towels on high for 2 minutes.

  And finally as a special offer to our subscribers, we are going to give everyone a 10% discount off all Weber

Kettle products this month, all you have to do is bring in this months copy of our news letter or mention this blog.

 All the very best & I hope you give this a good go. Do a few dry runs to perfect your technique and how it relates to your bbq model/size/capability prior to having that all important bbq dinner or inviting friends over to show off your skills & most important share quality fun times together. If you need to, please feel free to call us at the Silverwater store in Sydney.

Cheers,

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 1:57 pm and is filed under BBQ How to's : Grill, Roast, Bake, Smoke, etc, Outdoor Kitchens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.