Cooling Ribs before cutting


 
R

Ryan Taylor

New member
There was a heart warming story posted recently about a father-daughter bbq team and it mentioned how he thought he had over cooked his ribs but he realized after he had boxed them up that they tightened back up as they cooled off and delivered the consistency he wanted.

Recently I made a couple racks of ribs, brought them in the house, unfoiled them and went to immediately cut them and noticed they were overdone and falling off the bone. I cut up one rack and about halfway through our meal I went back in the kitchen to cut up the other rack and it had firmed up and was much easier to cut. Ribs were still tender but now they weren't crumbling apart.

So this leads me to thinking about my approach to competitions. We generally go smoker straight to the cutting board and on into the box. Do any of you follow a similar path where you let them rest to firm up before cutting? Seems like it would be a good idea, particularly if you unfoil your ribs and can immediately tell they've been on too long.
 
You should be checking for tenderness of the ribs before you remove them so that you know that they are done. They should be probe tender when ready. At that point, we remove them from the smoker and depending on how much time we have left before turn-in, we sauce, set & start cutting. I've never had overcooked ribs firm up on me before (would be a nice problem to have, though).

Perhaps the second rack was cooking at a slower pace so they were not overcooked as the first rack was. Remember, the rack can be similar brand, size, shape, weight and thickness; however, BBQ is done when it's done and some cuts cook slower/faster. We cook ribs at 275º and the margin of error for St. Louis style spare ribs between still too tough and barely too tender is only ~8 min. at the temp for us.
 
That's exactly what I do in competition. I will purposely overcook them just a hair and then pull them out with about 30-40 minutes until turn-in. I'll uncover them and let them cool a bit before slicing. Once they're sliced I'll put them (in sliced order) onto a jelly roll pan. Then I'll put them back into the top rack of the cooker just to keep them warm until the last second. Then box 'em up. That way hopefully they are still very warm when the judges get their hands on them. A warm rib has the advantage over a cold rib.

Works really good except that it's an extremely fine line between slightly overcooked and ruined.

Russ
 
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