Cooking my First Ribs


 
T

Tom Wilson

New member
I'm tyring my first real bbq so far the lowest I've been able to consistently keep the cooking grate temp at 262 for the last 2 hours. I really wanted to keep it between 230-250. My ribs have just reached 190 and they have only been cooking for 3hrs and 20 mins. I was hoping to cook them for 5 hours and sauce them the last 20 minutes. I sure hope they are not cooking to fast to get good smoke and tender. I've using several chunks of apple and a couple hickory chunks. However, I only saw smoke for about the first 1.5 hours.
 
262 is fine. This isn't rocket science - a few degrees either way is no big deal. Anyway a lot of people prefer to do ribs at 275.

There's no reason to look at the temperature of the ribs. It's not helpful. To tell if they're done you need to test the texture. There are several methods but the method I use is to wait until they look about done (comes with experience - you might notice that the bones stick out of the meat at the end a quarter of an inch or so) and then double check by grabbing those bone ends and pulling apart. There should be some small resistance at first and then it should tear easily. Some people like sticking them with a toothpick and there shouldn't be any resistance at all. Note that if your ribs are actually falling off the bone on their own without you taking a bite they've overdone and at some point will be mushy.

You don't need constant smoke, and anyway it sounds like you put a ton of wood on there. If it's too smoky next time try just a couple of chunks of either the apple or the hickory and see if that's closer to what you want.
 
Ribs are funny things, it's taken me a year to figure out what I like and I found it by accident.

A rushed cook job drove me to cook the ribs at 300F instead of 225F. From StokerLog I suspect my average temp was 280F.

I also by chance left the rubbed ribs in the fridge for two-hours as I had to go out on an errand.

I also found one medium chunk of apple give the right amount of smoke for us. Too much smoke makes my wife unhappy !

So I'd say try a few different approaches to find what you like best and enjoy your bar-b-que trying to find out !
 
I cook my ribs at 275F, (spares 2 1/2, 1 1/2 and baby backs 2, 1). I find they come out better at a higher temperature for a shorter time.

Your smoke seems fine. After a bit, you will not see smoke, but it's there. Over smoking is a bad thing.

Bob
 
And I cook 50-75? higher than that. Many ways to get there.

Cook till the ribs are tender. Not by time. Not to temp. Till they feel tender - a probe between the bones will go in effortlessly.
 
Thanks for all the replies, I certainly learned something from your replies that I should have known before beginning.

I would say that this was a learning experience, unfortunately most of the meat was extremely dried out and over cooked. Though some of it was very good. The crust on the outside was a bit too thick and I think I probably should have used bread pan filled with water to help add moisture to the kettle and with temp control.

I will certainly do it all again soon. It was also kind of reminder of the fact that I don't really like pork ribs. I've had pork ribs from professionals that were not a whole lot better than these. I much prefer beef ribs.

The rub I used had a good amount of sugar in it so I think that find of contributed to the too thick of crust. Perhaps using a little less rub would have also helped. I wonder if using honey would have made any positive difference.

These were not St. Louis style either and I've noticed a lot of folks on this and other BBQ forums seem to prefer them. Would they have made much of difference?

Sorry I'm kind of rambling, because I'm bit disapointed in how this turned out.
 
Tom, don't sweat temps too much. Do use a lot less wood though, and as much as I like hickory, I don't use it for ribs or poultry, at least or especially on a kettle.

Foiling after the ribs look good works wonders if you like a softer texture, and I'm comfortable at any temp between 250 and 300 with that method. Cook even faster as long as you foil soon enough, but don't forget about 'em. They can go from "falling off the bone" to "done fell off the bone" rather quick when cooking really fast, and I like neither. Don't give up on the the spare ribs, though, whether full or St. louis. Memphis dry st. louis are probably my favorite thing to smoke.
 
This is going to sound strange... but it might have been *under*cooked. As you cook ribs they get dryer and nastier as all of the water leaves. But you keep pasting them past doneness and the collagen in the meat converts over to gelatine and they get moister and moister again. Weird, huh? And basically if you keep pushing this they lose their structure until they fall apart and get mushy. I suppose it's possible that they get dry again eventually but you would have to cook them a *long* time.

It's not unusual for spareribs to take six hours to finish so you probably should have given them another hour.

The single biggest thing you can do to make good ribs is to really nail doneness. That's also the big advantage you have over a restuarant since it's hard for them to always have ribs finish up as customers arrive. Get that nailed and you can fiddle with the other stuff to your own personal preference.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Perhaps using a little less rub would have also helped. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Perhaps. I'd go with less sugar in the rub as well. Me, I like a fair amount of rub but the sugar is just a small part of it.

Honey's flavor is destroyed by heat so, no, I wouldn't recommend it. If you would like that flavor you can make a simple glaze that includes it. You would then paint it on very thinly using a pastry brush, after the ribs have just hit done. A few minutes on the grate for the glaze to seize and set, another thin application, if needed; done.

A St Louis cut to ribs evens the cooking. Other than that there is really no difference outside of the visuals.

Give it another shot.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Doug Wade:
This is going to sound strange... but it might have been *under*cooked. As you cook ribs they get dryer and nastier as all of the water leaves. But you keep pasting them past doneness and the collagen in the meat converts over to gelatine and they get moister and moister again. Weird, huh? And basically if you keep pushing this they lose their structure until they fall apart and get mushy. I suppose it's possible that they get dry again eventually but you would have to cook them a *long* time.

It's not unusual for spareribs to take six hours to finish so you probably should have given them another hour.

The single biggest thing you can do to make good ribs is to really nail doneness. That's also the big advantage you have over a restuarant since it's hard for them to always have ribs finish up as customers arrive. Get that nailed and you can fiddle with the other stuff to your own personal preference. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Excellent point, Doug. I noticed that Tom mentioned the temps at the grate which was around 260s....I wonder what was the readings at the lid?

On my WSM, I constantly monitor the temps at the grate level, which are set at 278 dgrees, for the ATC I'm using...but the temps at the lid are around 220-230 range. And it takes somewhere between 4.5-5 hrs for the baby back ribs to get done. For a spare rib rack, add another 45-60 minutes extra. To me it sure sounds that Tom's ribs were undercooked. 3.5 hrs are a bit too short for the time to get those ribs done. Kevin Kruger uses a lot higher temps, and his ribs are done around 3,5 hrs.
 
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