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LMichaels

LMichaels

TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
So I have a rack of Sam's Club baby backs. One side is really thick (the side I have the probe in). Other side more what you look for a "normal" slab to look like. Big Z holding like a rock at 185. Smoke is rollin'
My plan is a butcher paper wrap. I am thinking given the temps seeing here, I may want to wrap in the next hour? Then bump the smoker up to 220? Until I get probe tender or about 205 on the meat?
This is only my 3rd stab at smoking back ribs on the pellet grills and I've made no secret that I have missed the mark both times previously. Open to suggestion. They went on this morning about 945

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DanHoo said:
I cut slabs in half sometimes to even out the size difference.

Do you wrap meat down with anything?

I use butter, brown sugar and apple juice.
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Nope I add nothing. Just the wrap. Don't want all that extra stuff taking away attention from the meat
 
IMHO, it's not the temp, it's the crust being set in, and to determine when done, doing the tenderness test. Temp is ball park, usually pretty accurate, but checking the crust to see if it scratches or smears (scratches is the goal) and then if toothing picking is butter smooth is the ultimate goal.
 
Well, I did my wrap a few minutes ago Brought grill up to 215 (currently at 210 actual) probe temp 167
 
I see a lot of uneven thickness in back ribs. Just one of the several reasons for preferring St. Louis style. Either way, have about given up on wrapping in favor of no wrap at ~250 degrees. Makes no difference if they're on the kettle or the pellet pooper. With back ribs, I cook to tenderness in the middle area. A little extra bite on one end and fall off the bone on the other ain't the end of the world. It'd be a lot worse if you were eating Tofu ):
 
To late for a suggestion now but my preferred method is 250 from start to finish, about 4/5 hrs when all is done. No wrap. The well done parts are like candy. We like them almost fall off the bone.
 
They're starting to probe tender. Internal is between 160-165 (depending on where I stick my instant read). These may turn out better than my last attempts. IDK why I can pull this off on a gas grill so easily but when I use a tool that should make it easier and better I don't quite see the results I would like
I unwrapped and doing them meat side down now for a bit and will flip soon for saucing and baking in
 
Larry - I'm also in the process of trying to figure out the best way to make baby back ribs on my pellet grill. I've had a couple of mediocre batches, and a couple of decent ones, and one that was getting close to my goal.

When I started out, I wanted to take advantage of the smoke mode on my grill to try to infuse as much flavor as possible at the beginning of the cook, which keeps the grill that about 180°. I would do a rough version of a 3-2-1 cook, but I never kept it wrapped for more than an hour. I was never thrilled with the result. Meat fell off the bone too much for my liking, even with the short wrap.

The last time I made them, I was definitely in the 225 to 250 range for most of the cook, and I used a smoke tube. I decided not to wrap, and just cook them until they were ready. I had to bump it up to over 300 right at the end because we had to eat sooner rather than later, so a couple of the smaller ends got a little crispy. But the rest were great.

I'm not planning to wrap next time, but I will make sure to give myself enough time to stick with my plan. I'm thinking an hour on smoke mode, then bump up to 250 until they are almost ready, using the bend test. And then brush them with sauce and cook them a little bit longer to set. Not sure when I will get around to my next batch, but hopefully soon. I feel like I'm getting close.
 
I forgot to mention one thing, which is why I added my two cents. You mentioned that you get great results on your Genesis. My FIL has baby back ribs down to a science on his old Genesis (circa 2001). I was thinking that I'd be able to do pretty awesome ribs right out of the gate on my pellet grill. I sure was wrong.
 
Steve-G said:
Larry - I'm also in the process of trying to figure out the best way to make baby back ribs on my pellet grill. I've had a couple of mediocre batches, and a couple of decent ones, and one that was getting close to my goal.

When I started out, I wanted to take advantage of the smoke mode on my grill to try to infuse as much flavor as possible at the beginning of the cook, which keeps the grill that about 180°. I would do a rough version of a 3-2-1 cook, but I never kept it wrapped for more than an hour. I was never thrilled with the result. Meat fell off the bone too much for my liking, even with the short wrap.

The last time I made them, I was definitely in the 225 to 250 range for most of the cook, and I used a smoke tube. I decided not to wrap, and just cook them until they were ready. I had to bump it up to over 300 right at the end because we had to eat sooner rather than later, so a couple of the smaller ends got a little crispy. But the rest were great.

I'm not planning to wrap next time, but I will make sure to give myself enough time to stick with my plan. I'm thinking an hour on smoke mode, then bump up to 250 until they are almost ready, using the bend test. And then brush them with sauce and cook them a little bit longer to set. Not sure when I will get around to my next batch, but hopefully soon. I feel like I'm getting close.
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I don’t cook on a pellet grill but have used a 15-30 minute wrap in aluminum foil to get to tender ribs from 175-180°. I’ve found that to be enough time to accelerate the collagen to break down and make tender ribs without making pulled pork ribs. Then I’ll unwrap the foil, place the ribs meat side up and then reset the bark and sauce them. Grill temp can be 275-300 for this final reset.

Basically I’m using a boat method where the ribs are still in the foil, like a boat, and meat side up to get the candy finish on the bark.

The one time I went 1 hour in a foil wrap, the ribs were shredding. Not out style for ribs. We prefer a clean bite, and tender ribs.

Hope this helps if you elect to try it. I’ve got some back ribs on my S6 WSK right now.
 
Here is the weird thing. Right outta the gate I could turn out spare ribs (St Louis) to die for on the pellet grill but not on my gassers (Wolf or Genesis), but back ribs? Nearly perfect every time on either gasser. Now when I wanted to do a "less waste" cook I am having a hard time doing back ribs on the smokers (no luck either on Big Z or the MM). But, BUT! I just got in from checking and probing. They're beginning to probe like buttah! I may have achieved success. I have them on the keep warm setting while I do corn on the cob I got in DeKalb

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As a side note, I wonder if perhaps, because when I cooked back ribs on a gas grill I did have the same expectations and was happy with lesser quality results and when I got the pellet grills my expectations tainted my realities a bit. In any case these were MUCH better than my previous. But, perhaps my previous were actually as good as the gas grill but it was only my "expectations" of a gas grill not being capable of producing results like a smoker that made me "think" they were better than they actually were?
 
Yes that too is something I have noticed. Quite honestly cooking spares on the gas grills was always an exercise in futility on my part. Buy the pellet smoker and boom. First time I threw spares on it, the heavens opened and said "yes my child" :D
Oddly back ribs were somehow the "go to" for gas grill and here IDK. I think because most of my experience with ribs is back ribs on either my Genesis or my Wolf (or even the Summit Jon now has), again because of the negative results I would get. Likely because being leaner they may have adapted better to gas cooking and allowed me to achieve a better result (at least in my mind).
IDK, these ribs were really nice. I think in retrospect though. next time, I will be splitting them into the thick half and the thin half, and allowing each to come to fruition in it's own way.
But, for my $$$$ I think I will stick with spares mostly. I just like a nicely trimmed up St Louis rib better.
 
LMichaels said:
Well, for the first time I made a decent slab, of backs. A little "pig candy" on the thin end but still good. Stellar? No, but definitely not ashamed. I guess I am learning.
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Congrats Larry. We've been doing a lot of ribs lately, basically cooking them at 250 from start to finish. No wrapping, just letting them ride the storm out. Usually 6-7 hours, but we have gone North of 8 hours
 
ChuckO said:
Congrats Larry. We've been doing a lot of ribs lately, basically cooking them at 250 from start to finish. No wrapping, just letting them ride the storm out. Usually 6-7 hours, but we have gone North of 8 hours
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i did my Backs in 3 hours yesterday. the wrap helped accelerate the tender part and then i reset the bark for before slicing. idk why you'd want to go 6-8 hours!?!?!?!?!? unless of course that's the beer-a-thon part of the day.
 
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