Keeping grilling simple with the Pit Barrel Cooker.
Pit Barrel Cooker easy way to give a charcoal flavor to smoked meat delights
With more fancy grilling and smoking devices on the market than ever before, sometimes it’s best to keep it simple.
A new device is so simple, it ranks just slightly ahead of an open fire.
When Noah Glanville left military service, he thought about going to culinary school or opening a restaurant. Instead, in 2010, he developed his Pit Barrel Cooker, which has soared in popularity and has a regular presence on the competition barbecue circuit. Pretty much all there is to it is a barrel, a charcoal basket, a few hooks and a couple pieces of rebar.
“I knew that those ugly drum smokers were a great way to get a good, consistent heat environment, but there are some horror stories about taking any old drum and eating food out of it,” Glanville said. “The goal was to create a product that took the guesswork out of charcoal.”
That’s a great pitch line, but I
had to verify it with a full-blown test in the Food Shack with the Pit Barrel Cooker Junior, a 14-inch diameter device that retails for $229. The larger, 18½ inch classic model retails for $299.
The cooker is an immediate attention-getter. In a world where we are accustomed to placing
those steaks, briskets and rib slabs on a flat surface, the Pit Barrel Cooker is built to hang meats vertically on hooks like an old school smokehouse.
The idea is that it allows the heat to circulate around the meat, so everything cooks under the same conditions. There’s never any flipping required because nothing touches a hot metal grate that can sear the meat.
“To be able to get an all-around dynamic, and do it with everyday charcoal, makes it a unique pit experience,” Glanville said.
He designed the device with a deliberate air intake system at the bottom of the unit that can be opened or closed, but it’s usually best to keep it open. Air passes through into the charcoal basket and exits through four holes at the top that are slightly larger than the rebar that passes through them.
This does a couple of wonderful things: It regulates the heat to temperatures of about 275 to 325 degrees (which hovers between traditional smoker and hot grill levels), and allows the charcoal to last upwards of four hours or so. The cooker does come with a grill grate, and it can be configured to cook hotter for burgers by leaving the lid off, but I would default to another grill for that.
In my test, I did two separate cooks with a total of three racks of St. Louis style pork ribs, two whole chickens and a small brisket over hardwood lump charcoal.
I have no idea if the air truly circulates as advertised, but I will say that the meat was infused with more charcoal flavor than anything I have pulled off a traditional kettle grill. I traditionally gravitate to smoke flavor, so it was a welcome change.
The Pit Barrel Cooker was built for ribs, and if that’s all you ever use it for, that’s enough of a reason to get it. They were cooked to perfection after a little more than three hours, with a crusty bark and meat that retained elevated moisture levels. You can fit six to eight racks easy on this thing.
Chicken also took on a thick charcoal flavor in the same cooking window as the ribs, but the results were mixed. The split chicken worked fine and had plenty of juice, but the whole bird fell off the hook during the cooking process. You definitely have to pay attention to weight.
My brisket, which was a small 3 pounder off the flat, turned into something like a tough skirt steak, and I wasn’t quite sure if it was me, the cut or the cooker itself that was to blame after a four-hour cook. I’ll try again with a full brisket but am inclined to go with the triedand-true 12-hour process at 225 degrees in a more traditional smoker.
Overall, though, the Pit Barrel Cooker passed the Food Shack test and earned my endorsement.
Glanville said he has sold tens of thousands of cookers, and it’s easy to see why. It’s affordable, mobile, easy to use and a lot of fun to play around with.
To purchase one or to find a local retailer that carries one, go to pitbarrelcooker.com.