Chris in Louisiana
TVWBB All-Star
I've cooked baby-backs, chickens, briskets, and turkey.
Today I took a crack at untrimmed spareribs. It was a 4-2-1 cook.
Bought package of three racks of spares from Sam’s.
Oiled and rubbed the night before with mix of white and brown sugar, salt, paprika, black pepper, celery salt, onion powder, cayenne, ancho powder, etc.
10:00 a.m. Filled WSM 2/3 full of Kingsford unlit. Fired a Weber lighter full of K.
10:40 When lit was well lit, poured it on, and added 6 chunks of hickory. Let it get hickory well lit.
11:05 Assembled WSM with full water pan. Put one whole slab on bottom. Cut other two in half and put in racks on top. Temp 240 and steady. All vents 100% open
Fiddled with vents to keep temp down. Even at 10 to 25% open, temp tended to run around 240 to 265. (Measured by probe. WSM lid thermometer read much lower, as always)
Would have foiled at 2:00 (3 hours), but my helper was at the store, and the spares were rather big, so I figured a little extra time on would not hurt. I think they liked it.
3:00 Foiled with about 6 Tbsp of apple juice per packet. Meat was about 150. WSM at 245. Dialed vents down.
5:00 Took ribs out of foil. They were steaming nicely in there. Temp had settled to 225 or so during this last stage. Back on the WSM with un-foiled ribs
6:00 remove ribs
6:30 after oven was free of wife's baked potatoes, put ribs (coated with KC Masterpiece and honey mixture) under broiler until glazed. I tasted them dry, and they were ok, but we like a little sauce on ours.
The spares were very good. Nice and tender, but they still had tooth to them. They stayed on the bone, but pulled right off when bitten.
I passed out the extras to a couple of neighbors, who also enjoyed them. I always throw on some extra for the neighbors. They are good BBQ guinea pigs.
Next time I do ribs (spare or baby-back), I plan to try saucing with Stubb's or other tangy sauce rather than the sweet. The sweet mix is good, but I want to try something different.
Also, I think the 4-2-1 was needed/better for these big spares rather than traditional 3-2-1. The 3-2-1 method is probably fine for baby-backs.
It's settled. Next rib cook is baby-backs 3-2-1 with Stubb's sauce. I may try to keep the heat dialed a bit lower too.
Today I took a crack at untrimmed spareribs. It was a 4-2-1 cook.
Bought package of three racks of spares from Sam’s.
Oiled and rubbed the night before with mix of white and brown sugar, salt, paprika, black pepper, celery salt, onion powder, cayenne, ancho powder, etc.
10:00 a.m. Filled WSM 2/3 full of Kingsford unlit. Fired a Weber lighter full of K.
10:40 When lit was well lit, poured it on, and added 6 chunks of hickory. Let it get hickory well lit.
11:05 Assembled WSM with full water pan. Put one whole slab on bottom. Cut other two in half and put in racks on top. Temp 240 and steady. All vents 100% open
Fiddled with vents to keep temp down. Even at 10 to 25% open, temp tended to run around 240 to 265. (Measured by probe. WSM lid thermometer read much lower, as always)
Would have foiled at 2:00 (3 hours), but my helper was at the store, and the spares were rather big, so I figured a little extra time on would not hurt. I think they liked it.
3:00 Foiled with about 6 Tbsp of apple juice per packet. Meat was about 150. WSM at 245. Dialed vents down.
5:00 Took ribs out of foil. They were steaming nicely in there. Temp had settled to 225 or so during this last stage. Back on the WSM with un-foiled ribs
6:00 remove ribs
6:30 after oven was free of wife's baked potatoes, put ribs (coated with KC Masterpiece and honey mixture) under broiler until glazed. I tasted them dry, and they were ok, but we like a little sauce on ours.
The spares were very good. Nice and tender, but they still had tooth to them. They stayed on the bone, but pulled right off when bitten.
I passed out the extras to a couple of neighbors, who also enjoyed them. I always throw on some extra for the neighbors. They are good BBQ guinea pigs.
Next time I do ribs (spare or baby-back), I plan to try saucing with Stubb's or other tangy sauce rather than the sweet. The sweet mix is good, but I want to try something different.
Also, I think the 4-2-1 was needed/better for these big spares rather than traditional 3-2-1. The 3-2-1 method is probably fine for baby-backs.
It's settled. Next rib cook is baby-backs 3-2-1 with Stubb's sauce. I may try to keep the heat dialed a bit lower too.
