BB Ribs Cooked at 275 Degrees - Great Results

[John Vale]

After cooking many batches of BB ribs at 230 degrees for about 6 hours, including foiling for 1 hour, I wanted to experiment to see if I could cut down the cook time to under 4 hours and eliminate the foiling step.

Using a BB recipe from Dr. BBQ's book, I cooked the ribs for three hours at 275 degrees and as suggested started checking for doness with a toothpick. At 3 hours 20 minutes, the toothpick went between the bones easily and I took the ribs off. The BB ribs were easily my best result to date. Becuase of the sugar in the rub, the ribs developed a firm bark at this higher cook temperature. I am wondering if this barked helped keep the interior meat moist thereby eliminating the need to foil.

John

 

[K Kruger]

Checking for doneness as you did (rather than cooking by time) is what kept the interior meat moist. The rub doesn't have much to do with it. Had you cooked much longer than the point where the toothpick went in easily the ribs would have started to overcook and dry out. The doneness window is narrower when cooking ribs at higher temps. I cook backs at 300-325 grate and at those temps the window is narrower still.