I'm double booked this weekend


 
W

Wayne Ficklin

TVWBB Fan
I'm committed to cooking for two separate occasions this Sunday. I've got 3 slabs of baby back ribs for Sunday lunch, and Pulled Pork enough for 25-ish for Sunday supper (@ 5:30p). (To avoid confusion, I used "supper". Any other day of the week, "dinner" means the evening meal, ...but "Sunday Dinner" is often the meal eaten mid-day. Just me?) I saw a thread recently discussing the faux pas that is cooking ribs in any fashion other than as a whole slab, but I don't have a problem with it.

Think I can cook 3 slabs of ribs, each cut in half, on the top rack of my 18.5 WSM, and 2 butts on the lower rack?

This weekend just got long!
 
Good luck on your cooks Wayne I'm sure they will turn out perfect. I have a 22.5 so I can't give you any advise on if the ribs will fit. I have often cooked ribs over butt on my 22.5. Please be sure to keep us all posted and add some pictures of the cook.
 
I just got my 18.5 so I can't answer your question, but I will watch this post to see what the answer is. As far as cutting the ribs in half I do that all the time with my mini and there is no difference in the final product vs. whole racks.
 
Not sure 3 slabs can fit on a 18.5" without overlapping. If they overlap, meat needs to be turned frequently so you get an even cook. IMHO, I would add another cooking rack and cook everything at the same time.
 
Wayne;
Using two Brinkman rib racks (about $9.95 each) I can cook eight half racks of ribs (using both grates) in my 18.5, my 14.5, or my Mini-Joe and they come out perfectly evenly cooked (no burned ends like you often have trying to do whole rib racks on smaller smokers).

Good luck and favor us with pics of your successful cook!

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
I Usually cook three racks of baby back on the top rack of 18.5. I like to use a rib rack and snake them on the rack (if you get what I mean). I Think you could easily cook both in the 18.5. Just remember you might use more coals than usual since you have a lot of meat in there.
 
I can fit three normal rib racks on my 18 WSM. I could do a 4th if I cut it in half. Or use the racks and fit 5 or 6 (two racks)
 
The 3-2-1 method calls for cooking w/ the meat-side down in foil for the middle portion of the cook. How do you guys who've done it, accomplish that portion of the cook using rib racks?
 
What about rolling the ribs? I did 5 racks on one grate a few weeks ago that way. With 3 you wouldn't even have to stack them.
 
Wayne Ficklin said:
The 3-2-1 method calls for cooking w/ the meat-side down in foil for the middle portion of the cook. How do you guys who've done it, accomplish that portion of the cook using rib racks?
Click to expand...

I don't foil my ribs, but from what I understand, once you get them in the foil you no longer need the rib rack... That is to say once you foil them they can be stacked one foil pouch atop the other, as they no longer need equal access to the smoke just to the heat.

Whenever I cook 3 or more racks (and opt not to use the lower grate) I coil/roll the ribs and fit them all on the top grate.

The last time I did a shoulder and ribs, I started the butt on top and let it cook until the ribs needed to go on (was shooting for serving them at the same time) then moved the butt to the lower rack and put the coiled ribs up top. Worked pretty well for me.
 
This morning about 4:48 I found out that they will all fit. I fit 4 half-racks on my rib rack and laid the other 2 half-racks on the grate meat side up. The shoulders were a tighter fit than I expected on that bottom grate!
 
I started out taking notes Sunday morning. I lost steam, but will post them up eventually. (Saturday was a LONG DAY. Up @ 7-ish and spent the bulk of the day photographing kids and families (6 families) for a fundraiser. Then prepped everything while watching Clemson vs FSU. I really needed to go to sleep, but ...overtime.)
 
4:00 Alarm
4:02 Roll out of bed
4:07 Chimney lit (on side burner)
4:22 Dumped Chimney, added sprinkling of cherry around the outside prior
4:50 Two Pork Butts on the lower rack & 3 Baby Back rib racks (4 half-racks on the rib holder & 2 half-racks on the grate)
5:49 Temp around 210F. Put meat on around 210 and climbing, then temp fell to 175-180, and its taking a while to climb ...but that's a not-insignificant amount of cold meat that was put on. Currently @ Warp-10.

6:35 Temps finally @ 250F

10:20-ish Ribs off (2.5-2-.5 ...and they were starting to fall off)
4:25p 1st shoulder off
5:15p 2nd shoulder off


After my lunch meal of ribs, I was stuffed and couldn't even eat the pulled pork for dinner. Both meals met with fan fare from most everybody, but there was a family whose kids didn't seem to love it. I can live with that. 5 out of 7 kids ate their fill.

The ribs were a little too done. I'd wanted to cook @ 250-270 for most of the cook but as mentioned earlier it took a while for temps to come up (with that much cold meat on). I decided instead of 3-2-1 I was going to try for 2-2-1 ...but since it wasn't coming up to temp I went with 2.5 for that first number. I probably should've just not foiled at all with how they looked at the 2.5, but I was tired and didn't want to make a decision ...so just went with what I'd already decided and set my alarm for ~2 hours from that point. As mentioned, I would've been better served not to foil, but 1 hour probably would've been plenty. The .5 was just to dry things out a bit from having been foiled.

The shoulders were side by side. One had my go-to homemade rub, and another I used mccormick's applewood rub. (I'm not a fan of how it smells.) They were prepped identically, wrapped, and refrigerated next to each other. They also went on at the same time and sat next to each other. The first time I probed them for temp was when the ribs came off ...and one was 12°F higher than the other. 168-156. The temperature progression followed a steady pattern from there, and I pulled the hot one about 45 minutes before the last one ...which was pulled about 5 minutes before we left for the gathering. (I left that second one foiled while I pulled the first one, once I got there.)

We had quite a few less people than we'd expected, so I split the leftover meat with my in-laws and we're going to have leftovers for a while. Good eats though.

(At a restaurant this weekend I had "Appalachian Eggrolls". Pulled pork w/ greens mixed in, in an eggroll package. Good stuff right there. Might use that to help diversify the leftovers)
 
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