I bought 3 racks that were vacuum-packed. All looked wonderful. Nice white fat, 7-bones. I could see that there had been some carving between bones but it looked as if that didn't go too deep. I was wrong.
I just put the suckers on the grill. I opened the packages about an hour ago and discovered the "some carving" was in many instances a complete removal of the meat between the bones. Very disappointed. In retrospect, two things should have rung bell. One, the weight was light. 2.9 - 3.5 lbs per rack. Just seems too light for the volumne of meat. Two, if I had held the package up to the light, I could have see through some of the gaps thus warning me the trimming went to far.
The ribs just went on the WSM about 15 minutes ago. My strategy, because the meat isn't that thick is to crowd the meat closer so it acts like a bigger piece and to monitor the temps and do my best to keep it at 225 degrees. I'm using the minion method which should help with temp control.
Right now I'm holding at 176 degrees with bottom vents 0% open. I'll give it 15 more minutes and then adjust.
Smoke wood is a combination of mesquite, pecan and cherry.