Help on how to Pre Cook Spare ribs to freeze and reheat later.


 
N

NDekens

TVWBB Member
Ok, So I want to do a test with my ribs. I got two racks of spares that I'm going to trim to St. Louis style ribs.

After that I'm planning on smoking them on my 26" kettle for 3 hours and either wrap for 1 to 2 hours and take them off.

Once I take them off I was planning on leaving them in the foil and letting them cool the vacuum sealing them still in the foil as full racks and freezing them.

Then at a later date I would defrost and put them in the oven to reheat.

Th reheating part is what I don't quite have a grasp on;

Should I place them on a sheet pan still in the foil then out of the foil with sauce on them? How long and what temp?

I want to get this method down so that I can pre cook ribs and hand out to families at church or for other occasions.

How long do you think they would be good for in the freezer?
 
Cook until done, not by time. Unwrap for cooling and don't wrap before vacuum sealing. At temps <0˚ freezer shelf life is practically indefinite if properly vacuumed. Thaw in fridge first. You can reheat in oven or on grill. If you want to sauce, paint the ribs with it then wrap in HD foil along with a few tablespoons of stock or juice, sealing tightly. You can place in 250-275˚ oven or covered grill (indirect) for an hour (less time for back ribs; in either case you want an internal of ~150-155˚) then unwrap and either broil briefly to set the sauce (if desired; you can also repaint with sauce just before broiling), but watch closely if doing so lest the sauce burn. You can do something similar over direct heat on the grill if reheating with it.
 
K Kruger said:
Cook until done, not by time. Unwrap for cooling and don't wrap before vacuum sealing. At temps <0˚ freezer shelf life is practically indefinite if properly vacuumed. Thaw in fridge first. You can reheat in oven or on grill. If you want to sauce, paint the ribs with it then wrap in HD foil along with a few tablespoons of stock or juice, sealing tightly. You can place in 250-275˚ oven or covered grill (indirect) for an hour (less time for back ribs; in either case you want an internal of ~150-155˚) then unwrap and either broil briefly to set the sauce (if desired; you can also repaint with sauce just before broiling), but watch closely if doing so lest the sauce burn. You can do something similar over direct heat on the grill if reheating with it.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the input!

I tried this out friday. I had cooked two racks and vaccum sealed them earlier only did one hour wrapped though before vacuum sealing.

After I thawed them in the fridge, I stuck some butter and sauce on them in a foil tray along with a few tbp’s of water and coverd in foil. Then I stuck them in the oven at 400 for about 25. Then uncoverd for another 20.

They turned out good but, like you said, I for sure will be cooking them fully on the grill next time before sealing.

And next time I will use less smoke wood.

We normally eat our smoked food that day but after a day or two the smoke flavor is super intense and not what we are use too.
 
I did 8 racks of St. Louis cut last weekend, and put the FoodSaver vacuum sealer through a workout. Because of how I reheat my ribs (more on that), I cut them down into 4 bone sections and used FoodSaver quart-sized pre-made bags. This made good use of the box of the bag assortment I had bought at Costco, and 4 bones fit just right into the bags:
1620233275060.png
It had come with 46 quart-sized bags that I really wasn't sure I was going to use.

Anywho, I've found that using a sous vide method for reheating my smoker-to-freezer items works out best for me. I pull out what we want to eat and let them thaw in the fridge.
I'll bring a large pot of water on the stove to 190 degrees F (or so) and drop the bags in for about an hour, assuming they are thawed all the way. The bag holds in all of the original moisture and flavor, and I don't need to worry about they drying out in the oven or (gasp) microwave.

I had been making my own bags with the rolls and putting half-racks of in those packages, but found that my pot of water isn't quite deep enough to make this work effectively. I've heard of people putting the longer bags in a longer casserole dish (filled with water) and using the oven to bring the water up to temp, but I never tried that.

That, and when it is just me and the missus, I can pull out exactly how many 4 bone sections we plan on eating and just warm up that amount. When I was doing half racks, we'd always end up with 4-7 bones leftover that went in the fridge. I'm not too big of a fan for heating/reheating things more than once, so I try to just do the reheat thing one time.
 
Tracy Seelhammer said:
I did 8 racks of St. Louis cut last weekend, and put the FoodSaver vacuum sealer through a workout. Because of how I reheat my ribs (more on that), I cut them down into 4 bone sections and used FoodSaver quart-sized pre-made bags. This made good use of the box of the bag assortment I had bought at Costco, and 4 bones fit just right into the bags:
View attachment 27450
It had come with 46 quart-sized bags that I really wasn't sure I was going to use.

Anywho, I've found that using a sous vide method for reheating my smoker-to-freezer items works out best for me. I pull out what we want to eat and let them thaw in the fridge.
I'll bring a large pot of water on the stove to 190 degrees F (or so) and drop the bags in for about an hour, assuming they are thawed all the way. The bag holds in all of the original moisture and flavor
Click to expand...
Cool. Note that you don’t need to thaw first. You can bring a pot of water to a full boil, toss in the bag(s) right out of the freezer, then cover the pot. Heat 15 minutes or so then shut off the burner allowing the residual heat in the water to finish the job, maybe 10-15 minutes longer. Works for nearly any vac’d food. Adjust timing based on thickness/density of the food in the bags.
 
K Kruger said:
Cool. Note that you don’t need to thaw first. You can bring a pot of water to a full boil, toss in the bag(s) right out of the freezer, then cover the pot. Heat 15 minutes or so then shut off the burner allowing the residual heat in the water to finish the job, maybe 10-15 minutes longer. Works for nearly any vac’d food. Adjust timing based on thickness/density of the food in the bags.
Click to expand...
I thought about this, but I thought I'd err on the side of caution. The FoodSaver website says:

Can I boil FoodSaver® bags?
FoodSaver® Bags and FoodSaver® rolls are simmer safe for sous vide cooking. Simmering is a food preparation technique in which foods are cooked in hot liquids kept just below the boiling point of water (which is 100 °C or 212 °F).

Just to be on the safe side I decided to keep everything under 212 F.
 
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