1st Rib Smoke and Temps

[Kevin (WI)]

I smoked some baby back ribs on the weekend and had one rack turn out very good but the other two, which were thicker, seemed more tough than I wanted. The smoker temp was 250 but I wanted to get it up to 275. However, the Brinkman waterpan was full and prevented the temps from getting high enough. I cooked the ribs for 4 hours and foiled for 1.5 of the 4 hours. My question is how to get the temp up with the water pan and how to get the ribs more tender.

 

[Doug Wade]

The tough ones probably needed more time.

The job of the water pan is to keep the temp from getting too high. At 212 the water boils and you won't get the temps a whole lot higher than the traditional 225-250 range. If you want to cook ribs at 275 (which is totally reasonable) don't use water in the pan. You'll want to keep an eye on things the first couple of times but it's not that big of a deal. There are various tricks that can help stabilize at higher temps - search on clay saucer and see if that helps any.