Loading up the Jumbo Joe

Here is another reason why the Jumbo Joe is so much better than the Smokey Joe Gold; you can put more stuff in it!!
If you want to take the Jumbo Joe somewhere you can fit everything you need for an awesome cookout right inside the grill!! Check this out.

I start with a charcoal basket filled with Kingsford briquettes off on the side of the grill. I then add a package of Weber lighter cubes, my digital thermometer and a lighter.

Then you can add your grilling utensils (the smaller Weber tongs and spatula fit perfect), napkins, toothpicks and a few condiments. If I was thinking better I would have added a few plastic forks and spoons…doh!!

Next you put the grill grate in place and add a bag of chips, paper plates and a bag of buns.

Close and lock the lid on this bad boy and you have everything you need for an awesome cookout! This is so easy to carry and you look like Captain Awesome Prepared when you start unpacking everything!

Obviously you will need to pick up a few bratwursts, chicken wings and a tub of potato salad somewhere along the way 🙂

 

Amazingly Tender Slow Smoked Roast Beef

I have used an eye of round roast for roast beef before and have been able to get the flavor I wanted but never the tenderness. The only way I could ever get this roast tender was to slice it paper thin which, honestly, was a pain in the butt.

My Mom put me on to an incredible idea that worked wonders for tenderness; salting the roast the day before cooking. Brining does wonders for pork and chicken; no reason that a pile of salt shouldn’t help loosen up beef as well.

I started with a 3.5 pound eye of round roast, trimmed off the main pockets of surface fat and salted the heck out of the thing with kosher salt.

The roast got wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and placed in a shallow dish.

I like to make sure my roast beef is extra juicy and flavorful so I inject it with beef broth. I shot this guy up with about a cup of beef broth while it was wrapped in plastic then let everything rest in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day the roast was rinsed to get rid of the excess salt and patted dry.

I painted the beef with a little yellow mustard so the dry rub would adhere better and then rubbed it with granulated onion, granulated garlic and black pepper.

The Jumbo Joe was set up for Low and Slow smoking with a bank of charcoal that had been lit on one side with a Weber Lighter Cube. I added a chunk of hickory, put the roast on the indirect side and let it smoke away.

The beef was smoked for three hours total (rotated at 90 minutes) and looked and smelled amazing.

I basted the beef with the same Jim Beam barbecue sauce I used for the World’s Best Grilled Pork Chops and let it go another few minutes for the sauce to set up.

This guy looked spectacular! The beef was pulled at an internal temperature of 140F and allowed to rest for 30 minutes before slicing.

This was easily the best roast beef I have ever cooked.  Salting the beef made a HUGE difference in tenderness (Thanks, Mom!) and the beef really took up the smoke.  This cook will be repeated many times!

Be sure to check out all of the Jumbo Joe accessories to get even more fun out of your grill!

 

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you with the World’s Best Grilled Pork Chop!

Okay, okay…these might not be the world’s best pork chops but they are awfully dang great.  Here is a link to what I think are the best smoked pork chops I have ever made.

These thick chops were grilled with indirect medium heat for about 30 minutes on my Weber Jumbo Joe. I was trying out some coconut charcoal on this cook and can absolutely say that I am not a fan of the stuff.

I am sure there are many redeeming properties about coconut charcoal. The stuff burns too different from Kingsford for me to really get comfortable with it. Considering that this stuff isn’t cheap I don’t think I will be buying anymore just for experimentation sake.

They key to these awesome grilled pork chops is the brine. These thick cut chops were brined for six hours with the following:

• 1 quart water
• 1/3 cup salt
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1/3 cup honey

After bring the chops were rinsed, patted dry and seasoned with black pepper.  The chops were grilled for 20 minutes with indirect medium heat and were looking pretty nice.

 

The chops got basted with some Jim Beam barbecue sauce and were allowed to cook for another another 10 minutes until an internal temperature of 150F was reached.

 

 

I picked this sauce as it has a molasses component with a nice vinegar twang. This is not a sweet sauce. It’s a bit like what you would get if you mixed A1 Steak Sauce with some Sweet Baby Rays.

These were the juiciest chops I have ever grilled. These chops were completely delicious and I was a bit sad that I only grilled two of them. I’ll know better next time.

One of the problems of using a portable charcoal grill is getting the thing lit.

Learn how to barbecue.

I am talking about when you take the Jumbo down to the tailgate party or the campground and you are trying to keep your life simple. If you want to keep things as easy as possible then get some Weber lighter cubes!

The lighter cubes are small blocks of paraffin wax that light easily, burn cleanly and are easy to store and transport.  They do not have any odor to mess with your food and they don’t leave behind any residue or ashes.

At home you might use your charcoal chimney but who wants to pack that dirty thing up and bring it along for the ride? You might think about bringing along a bottle of lighter fluid. That’s fine if you don’t mind the taste and all you want to do is do some high heat grilling. You also run the risk of the stuff spilling in your car, etc. Personally I just don’t like messing with the stuff.

A third option, one that I LOVE, is to use the Weber lighter cubes! I love the lighter cubes so much that now I always use them to light my Jumbo, even when it is sitting on my back porch.

If you want to do a “low and slow” cook then bank your coals on the side of the grill with a single lighter cube on one side of the charcoal pile. Light the cube with the lid off the grill and in 15 minutes you should have four or five lit briquettes. This is how I started my Jumbo when I cooked a ten hour brisket. Here is what it looked like when I lit the cube at 5 a.m.

If you want to do some high heat grilling then simply arrange a stack of charcoal on top of a lighter cube and then light the cube. I used a small stack of charcoal for this picture so you could see what I am talking about. You should use a bigger pile and center it in the middle of the grill for hot and fast grilling.

In my opinion this is the BEST way to light the jumbo Joe whether you are at home or on the road. Below are some reviews from other folks on the Weber lighter cubes; people like them!

Click Here to Buy Weber Starter Cubes!

I found a fun channel on YouTube from TosTinMan.  He does videos on a bunch of different topics and one of the topics is grilling things up on his Weber Jumbo Joe. 

Here is a video he did cooking prime rib roast on his Weber Jumbo Joe.  The roast looks to weigh a little over three pounds.  I’ll let you watch the video to see how he seasons things up.  He grills indirect for about an hour, rotates the roast and goes for another hour. 

I think it looks like it turned out very well!  If you like the video make sure to suscribe to his channel!

 

 

Be sure to check out some other Weber Jumbo Joe Upgrades!

My buddy Steve over at BBQ Bros has a ton of cool toys!  He also makes some great videos; I highly recommend that you subscribe to his YouTube channel!

Steve recently put up a fun video for making some awesome looking breakfast burgers using a Kettle Q on his Weber Jumbo Joe.

The Kettle Q is a stainless steel griddle that lets you make crusty “smash burgers”, fry eggs, hash browns, etc on your grill.  Take a look at Steve putting this set-up through its paces making some breakfast burgers.

I think the Kettle Q looks awesome!  The only downside I see is that you can’t fully close the lid of the Jumbo while using the Kettle Q.

If you want to be able to close the lid with a griddle then you can get the Weber griddle that was designed for the WeberQ grills.  These fit the Jumbo Joe just fine.

Click here to buy the Kettle Q from Amazon!

Click Here to Buy the Weber Griddle From Amazon!

These look like a lot of fun!

Don’t forget to subscribe to Steve’s YouTube channel.  If we can get a ton of folks to sign up we can probably get him to make more Jumbo Joe videos!

 

My buddy, Davey, was kind enough to send some pictures and a write-up on how he installed a thermometer on his Weber Jumbo Joe.   Thanks, Davey!!

Just wanted an indicator on how well the charcoal is doing on my jj.  Small grill but very versatile, the tel-tru is recommended as the jj can hold temp = really surprising.

Picked up the tel-tru grill thermometer = great kit.

Bonehead proof install. Use a bit of masking tape where you want to mount it then drill a 1/4” hole. Thread the wingnut and you’re done. The tel-tru is about half the cost of the Joe, in Canada approx 30.00. However great quality unit and you can move it to others when you want, think it will outlast the jj. 🙂

Put some thought into the mounting = First, the deck height to lid is shallow on the jj. Second, don”t want it getting smoke bombed or otherwise disturbed whilst storing the lid. Third, this thermometer has a small probe length, but combined with the deck height didn’t want any further restrictons on where I can place the cuts. Sure there will be better solutions but this was what I humbly came up with.

Btw, the tel-tru is deadly accurate. Hey, is anyone else out there as hepped up on this little grill as I? Extremely versatile, really surprising capabilities, seriously. And we all know nothing better for poultry!  For the money it’s the bomb!

Update: I ended up installing a thermometer by installing it through the vent.  The top vent is held in place by a screw that is the same diameter as the Tel-Tru thermometer.  It takes about two minutes to swap the screw for the thermometer.

 

 

Personally I was not a fan of the thermometer in this location.  I found the stem kept getting in the way when I was smoking pork butts.  I have seen other people do the side mount as described above and folks seem to like it okay.

Click Here to Buy the Tel-Tru Thermometer on Amazon!

Chicken wings are another reason I really like using GrillGrates on my Weber Jumbo Joe. 

The wings were dusted with salt, pepper and a little bit of chili powder. I placed about a half chimney of lit Kingsford evenly across the charcoal grate, added the standard grill grate and then added the two panel GrillGrate.  I gave the GrillGrate about 10 minutes to heat up before I put 15 whole wings onto the grill.

Here is where the beauty of GrillGrates come in…I was able to close the lid and walk away without having to deal with flare-ups.  The GrillGrate vaporized most of the dripping fat.  The grease that did make it to the charcoal flared but the bottom panel of the GrillGrate blocked the flame from burning the wings.

I turned the wings over every 15 minutes and during the last 5-10 minutes of grilling I basted the wings in Italian dressing.  The wings cooked up easy, looked fantastic and tasted wonderful.

GrillGrates get most of their publicity for helping you lay down serious grill marks.  While I had fun putting great marks on some chicken wings the real reason I use GrillGrates with wings is because it makes the whole process so danged simple.  There are times when I am grilling that I have fun by fighting the fire and taming the flames…there are other times when I just want great grilled food without any fuss.  When I really want things to be easy and simple I bust out the GrillGrates.

Here is the Amazon link for the GrillGrates that fit the Jumbo.

Be sure to check out some other Weber Jumbo Joe Upgrades!

One of the limitations of the Weber Jumbo Joe is the limited clearance under the dome.  You can’t cook a beer can chicken on the grill grate and you certainly can’t fit a ham or turkey under there.  Here is one way to tackle the problem.

In this post I will show you how I fixed the problem for $26.  If I had seen a post like this one the actual work could have been completed in less than 10 minutes.  In reality one of the steps took me a couple of hours to figure out because I was an idiot.  Don’t worry; I took pictures so you won’t have any problems.

First I want to give a big shout out to Larry Watkins.  This modification is his idea and he was kind enough to send me descriptions and pictures of how to do it.

I will be honest, when I first saw what Larry had done I thought there was no way I would ever try this modification.  This involves working with metal and my mechanical aptitude is ZERO.  I mean it, I suck at using tools.  There was no way I could ever pull this off.

It turns out that when it rains for a week I get jumpy from not getting to play with my grills.  I got jumpy enough to head down to Home Depot and picked up what I needed to give this a try.

Here is what you need:

• A 10 foot roll of 10 inch aluminum roof flashing.
• A box of 3/16 inch rivets.
• A rivet gun.
• A drill with a 3/16 inch drill bit.
• Tape

The aluminum flashing cost $11, the rivets were $5 and the rivet gun was $10.  I borrowed the cordless drill and 3/16 inch drill bit from my wife.

 

Start by taking the tape off of the roll of aluminum flashing and letting the material naturally unroll.  I say “let” like you have a choice; you don’t really.  Once the tape is off it just happens.

Take the lid off the Weber Jumbo Joe and guide the flashing into a circular pattern that fits just outside the charcoal grate and just inside the kettle.  There are no tools or brute force involved.  You are gently guiding a flexible metal into a natural round shape. The ten feet of flashing will wrap around the Jumbo Joe about two and a half times.  At this point you will have something that looks like this. Note the position of the flashing relative to the kettle and charcoal grate.

.

I used some tape to compress the layers of aluminum together so things would stay in place while I drilled holes for the rivets. I decided I needed four rivets to hold everything together.  I placed the rivets on both of the ends of the roll of flashing; one at the top and one at the bottom.

Drill a hole in the metal that is the same size as the rivet.  These were 3/16 inch rivets so I used a 3/16 inch drill bit.  You do not need a special drill bit for aluminum; it is an extremely soft metal that is easy to drill.

 Insert the thick end of the rivet through the hole until the flat section of the rivet seats against the metal. (This is the step that took me over an hour to figure out.)

 

 

Grab the thin end of the rivet at the base with the rivet gun.Squeeze the handle on the rivet gun.  Depending upon the gun you use you may have to squeeze, re-grab and squeeze again multiple times.  I had to do it four times per rivet.  You are done when the end snaps off and leaves behind something that looks like this.

 Stick the kettle lid on your extension and you are ready to go!

Some things you need to know….

1. This is super easy.
2. The extension looks cool as heck.
3. The extension does NOT have a high degree of structural strength.  It is constructed of a few layers of thin aluminum and is very flexible.

A few words about the flashing….

If you buy a roll of flashing that is longer than 10 feet you will have to do some metal cutting.  Don’t do it!  Make life easy on yourself and get the 10 foot roll; it’s the perfect size.

The most common flashing material is galvanized.  At very high temperatures the zinc from the galvanization can vaporize and contaminate your food.  At high enough dosage zinc is toxic.  Some people make this extension with galvanized flashing because they ONLY use it for very low temperature cooks.

I suggest using aluminum flashing instead of galvanized so you don’t have to even consider temperature issues.  The first time I used my extension was in a high heat application and galvanized would NOT have been viable.

You should be able to find everything you need for this project at Home Depot.  Just in case you can’t here are some links for the products at Amazon.

Aluminum flashing

3/16 aluminum rivets

Rivet gun

Jumbo Joe

If you would rather just spend some cash and get a great commercial smoker extension then check out the Weber Jumbo Joe Upgrades post.

No modifications to the Weber Jumbo Joe are really needed as it is already a fine grill.  I did a few metal projects for entertainment hoping to add some extra performance into my Jumbo.  I don’t really use either of these modifications very much but I have high hopes for the heat diffuser plate.

Buy The Jumbo Joe Now

If you know of any other modifications that someone has done please shoot me a note and I will include it here.

Weber Jumbo Joe Barrel Extension

Weber Jumbo Joe Heat Diffuser