A real perennial favourite: the Minion ring
12.10.2016
Translation: machine translated
Today I'm going to show you how you can easily prepare your charcoal kettle barbecue for any long job. A long job is a barbecue dish that stays on the barbecue for a long time. These include classic BBQ ribs, pulled pork or beef brisket.
How do I keep my barbecue at a constant heat for as long as possible? You can find a few helpful tips in my article on temperature control in the kettle barbecue. Briquettes are known to burn longer than charcoal, but even the best briquettes are finished after four hours at the latest. During this time, they have already lost quite a bit of heat.
The solution: the Minon Ring
So how do I get hours of constant heat? Briquettes are the solution here too - but the real secret is a special technique for placing the briquettes. The Minion ring.
The Minion Ring has nothing to do with the cute little yellow things from the cinema, but is named after its inventor Jim Minion. If the internet is to be believed, he was looking for a simple method that would allow him to leave the grill running unattended for long periods of time and came up with this very technology.
Step by step
As just mentioned, you will need a few briquettes of your choice. These briquettes are now stacked in a row on the outside of your kettle barbecue
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Step by step, this is how the Minion Ring works:
- Place a large stone at one point on the ring. This holds the briquettes and forms the end of the ring.
- Now place two rows of briquettes next to the stone like dominoes.
- Now place a third row of briquettes on top of the two rows. The photos should make it clear what I mean.
- If you want to give the meat an additional smoky flavour, place smoking chips at the beginning of the ring. The meat absorbs the smoke flavour best at this stage.
Important: All briquettes must be placed close enough together so that they are in contact but also allow some airflow.
Many, if not most, of the long jobs require a low heat of 100 - 120 degrees and a humid climate in the cooking space. This is where a classic water bowl comes into play, which you can place in the centre of the ring. Preferably fill the bowl with hot water so that the grill doesn't cool down unnecessarily and you don't waste energy. To light the ring, place approx. six glowing briquettes from a barbecue fire on the top of the ring.
Place the lid on and give it at least 45 minutes. During this phase, the unglowing briquettes can outgas in the heat. Use this time to regulate the grill to the right temperature using the ventilation controls. For 110 degrees, my lower ventilation slider is about a quarter open. The ventilation at the top of the kettle barbecue is only used to regulate the intensity of the smoke flavour. The more this slider is open, the less flavour the food absorbs.
What length should I put the Minion ring on?
Two factors are decisive for the length of the Minion ring: How long should the barbecue burn? And which briquettes should I use? For classic barbecue ribs, you don't need more than six hours, while pulled pork can take up to 24 hours in the worst case. In the latter case, be sure to place a complete ring in the kettle grill (separated only by the stone, as it should only burn in one direction). Half a ring is also sufficient for the ribs.
The briquettes are not all of the same quality, which can have a huge impact on the burning time. I have already prepared a number of dishes using a Minion Ring. While some briquettes didn't even burn down half the ring, I had to add more fuel to another type.
In the next article, I'll show you how to prepare some wonderful 3-2-1 ribs using the Minion Ring in the kettle barbecue. Until then, have fun trying it out!
How to cook meat properly
The big kettle grill tutorial
I was born in the Rhineland, am a project manager in IT and a family man. Away from ones and zeros and at the latest with the move into our home I have found my only true project: The barbecue!
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Since 2015 I have been writing about this on my blog. There I give my readers all sorts of tricks and tricks about barbecuing with charcoal and present my latest creations and ideas.
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You'll find more of me here:
<a href="http://project-bbq.de" target="_blank">project-bbq.de</a>