Big rib smoke this weekend in WSM....


 
J

John A

TVWBB Member
Can anyone give their best guess at the following, it would really help me out for my big rib smoke this weekend:

I normally smoke 1 rack of costco baby back ribs laying flat on the top grate for 4 hours; how long do you think 5 racks would take on the top grate in a rib rack?
Normal temperatures such as 250 plus fluctuations.

I was going to give this 6-7 hours assuming it will take longer to cook more meat. Thoughts?
 
John
The cook will take longer, but it should not take too much longer. It may take longer to meet your temps and fuel consumption may go up the, but the cook time will not go crazy long. I recently cooked six racks of spares at work and managed to get them all done in 5 1/2 hrs. and that was all on the top grate(I was at work and left bottom grate home) so the meat wall was relitivly dense. I would be suprised if you went more then 5 hours.
Hopefully some others will chime in also. Have a good cook and remember if there are no pics then you did not cook it.
 
Doing four or five slabs isn't going to add a significant amount or time over doing just one. With the mass of the extra cold meat, the pit will take a little longer to recover but not by any great amount.

Plan on around under five hours and you'll be fine.

HTH
 
what kind of rib racks do you guys use? I have some from weber but they are a little bit of a pain because the ribs seem to get caught in them as your trying to remove them and they are terrible to clean.
 
I did 10 racks (5 on each grate) last summer and had pretty good results in about 5 hours, though a couple were a little more done than I'd have liked. That said, I got raves from everyone and very few leftovers. Used a Klose rib rack on one grate and a really crappy rack on the other. Temps kept very steady throughout (225-240) and there was almost no opening of the lid. I didn't foil (which I usually do) because, well, 10 racks is a lot of foiling. I may do it this time around, though.
 
Hey John, I did 9 racks of spares two weekends ago and it went just fine. I did 5 on top, 4 on the bottom, and they were done in ~4 1/2 hours, but I usually do little higher heat, ~265 or so, and I foiled for about 50 mins.
 
Thanks guys - great answers. I think that the consensus is that it may take an extra hour at most. I'll schedule for 5 hours after seeing what everyone has suggested.

Chuck - I think all rib racks are terrible to clean. I clean mine off the next time my performer is warming up coals. I'll just sit the rib rack on the grate of the performer and the gunk just burns off. Much easier than filling a sink with water like I used to do!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by J Graz:
John
The cook will take longer, but it should not take too much longer. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ditto
 
Outstanding estimations!

The ribs cooked for about 4-5 hours and were easily done at the 5 hour mark. They were very good.

I had real trouble getting over a 215-225 degree temperature hurdle. So pretty much the whole cook was at 215-225 and never higher. I thought this would screw me but it didn't; the ribs broke apart easily and were a real hit.

The WSM is a beast to smoke all that food with no real constant monitoring.
 
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