2 racks of St. Louis ribs for first smoke


 
D

Den L

New member
Well, I'm a couple hours into my first smoke with my new 18.5 WSM. I'm using one chunk of hickory and 2 chunks of cherry wood. So far I think I made a great choice in smokers. I'm just using a rub, no foil or spray etc. I might put some sauce on one rack 15-30 mins before I pull them. Instead of water in the pan, I'm using lava rocks that you would get for a gas grill. I covered them in foil to make clean up a bit easier. I got her up to temp pretty quick using the minion method. The temp stabilized around 252 on my Maverick ET733. I put it through the grommet hole sticking into the smoker about 1.5 inches. The lid temp is reading about 230. Around the start of hour 2, my alarm went off and it climbed to almost 295. Took me a couple mins to figure out that the probe had some drippings on it. I moved the ribs away from the probe and cleaned it off. Temp is reading 255 and pretty stable. I hope it taste as good as it smells.
 
Sounds like you've got the knack for great ribs. Post some pics in the gallery when it's ready to display :)
 
Hopefully this works. I think I over cooked them just a bit, but they were juicy and tasted great. They pretty much fell off the bone. I cooked them about 5 and half hours at 255ish. This was my first time using the WSM. I've never smoked anything in my life, so I think I did pretty good for my first try. Around hour 4, my temps started dropping so I opened the side door and stirred up the coals a bit and it went back to temp. Is this normal? My WSM seemed to use a lot of fuel for a short cook. Do they use less more as they get seasoned up?




 
Last edited:
Ribs look great. The best way I find to tell if ribs are done is the bend test. Take some tongs and slide them half way down the rack of ribs and pick them up. If they fall over close to 90 degrees without breaking, then they are done. If they break, they are over done. If they don't fall over close to 90 degrees then not done enough.

I never thought about just sticking in the probe thru the grommet and no further. Seems like that is a lot easier than feeding it all the way in and getting it mounted on the top grate. Learn something new everyday.
 
The larger rack broke in half when I tried to remove it. I think next time I'll check them around 4-4.5 hours in. Thanks for the info.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top