Near rib disaster averted with WD-40
There are many advantages to the occasional work from home day. Certainly in the top 5 is the fact that on a bright, sunshiny day - I can take a quick break late morning to toss some lump charcoal into my Big Green Egg smoker, toss in some wood chunks, some hunk of meat, shut the lid and go back to work.
Now for me, I have had some serious trial and error to be able to create ribs the way I like them. They must have a slightly spicy rub, a thick smokey sauce and they have to be falling off the bone, done. Part of the trick for me after a couple of hours of indirect cooking is to open the Egg, and wrap the ribs in aluminum foil - toss back in and shut the lid once again for the next few hours.
So, today was no different. Taking a quick break mid-afternoon from my office, I grabbed a soda, the foil and charged out to the patio. Now the Egg is made up of a couple of fairly heavy pieces of ceramic with a thick metal, spring loaded hinge contraption. A horizontal metal band surrounds both the top and the bottom pieces of the egg to assist in lifting and holding the Egg 'top' open to access the goodness inside. Well, I am a relative Egg newbie {thanks to a good friend Ken who has shown me the right path} and I am still very much in the learning stage with this thing.
At any rate, it appears that over time, the metal hinge contraption tends to have some adverse effects to the elements.... Needless to say, after the ribs had been foil wrapped appropriately, as I pushed down the lid, the hinge didn't move quite as smooth as it should have, and off popped one of the metal bands holding the heavy ceramic lid to the base of the Egg....
Uh, oh. Now here I am - about 5 minutes away from a con call, holding a half connected heavy piece of ceramic and metal that has been heated to about 230 degrees.... {Thankfully, I was not cooking steaks - which I cook on the egg at about 700 degrees...} Now the lid is still sort of connected - but not connected enought to prevent it from crashing to the cement in pieces was I to let go. The Egg has two vents, one at the bottom and one at the top, that control air flow over the lump charcoal and thus the temperature. Lump charcoal can burn pretty hot and pretty fast if it has enough air, and it's always easier to get the egg to a high temperature, than it is to keep it at a low temperature. Of course, here I stand literally watching the lump grow brighter and brighter while holding the lid in its questionable, yet clearly open state....
All that is going through my head at this point is how peeved I'm going to be if I screw up these ribs.
Out of the corner of my eye - I miraculously catch sight of that all too familiar blue and yellow can, just sitting there, source unknown, under my other fantastic and well loved grill. Now, in reality, either I or some other family member recently grabbed the WD-40 out of the garage for some other purpose and simply forgot to put it back. But, part of me wants to believe that the 'grilling spirits' were just watching over me today and decided to help me out of a pickle - who's to argue? I stretched over, grabbed that can, and a short couple of sprays later, the Egg lid was safely back as intended.
Rest assured that I made it to my con call in time... and yes, the ribs are fantastic - if I do say so myself.
/jason
