Weekend update

First, my grill might not cook again. At least not without me replacing some of the innards.

After uprighting the thing on Friday I hit it with a good cleaning on Saturday afternoon. Scraped out about two years worth of grease and gunk. Then the moment of truth: would I get the blue flame of propane?

No. Started out with yellow hues, not quite hot enough for the true griller. In a few minutes they burned out leaving me with no fire and the rotten cabbage smell of unused LP.

Drat.

I do know this was caused by the wind shear, as I've used the grill a few times since the weather turned more temperate.

What about the lamb chops for Geoana's birthday meal?

Since I tend to work with a backup plan in mind I procured charcoal for the (smaller) kettle grill and the end result was nicely grilled bits o baby sheep with a flavor that only comes from coals.

And, since Char-Broil is a manufacturer of some reputation I went onto their web site and sure enough it appears my parts are still available. They're just not cheap. To replace the burners will run me $25 apiece (three of them). The valve/hose/regulator assembly will set me back more than 50 bucks.

Still cheaper then a brand new grill.

Did I mention I used the aforementioned kettle for smoking spareribs yesterday? I used some charcoal combined with hickory, cedar, and apple wood. The result was a nice aroma together with white smoke.

What about the end result? Turns out I had them on just a little too long. While portions were still edible (and tasty) some parts were just too overcooked.

I could have felt sorry for myself, but I'd rather view this as a learning experience. It was my first attempt at smoking meat the true way (low and slow), in the future I just need to check on the doneness rather than have a set time in mind.