"Houston, We Have a BRITU!"


 
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Lee A

TVWBB Member
So last night about midnight I learned about this thing called the rib membrane and how it's, apparently, the source of all evil in the land. Well that just won't do! So I have 3 racks, cut in half, de-membraned and sitting on the counter right now. Earlier this morning I put together the spices from the BRITU recipe. Those ribs are sitting there, enjoying the spice bath.

So now I have to get the grill put together and ready. I'll fire it up about 11:00 and am aiming for a noon cooktime. Going to smoke them with mesquite wood. I'll keep you guys up to date.

(PS: Oh yeah, I plan on relighting the cooker this evening for an overnight smoke of a 6lb brisket! Happy Father's Day!)
 
OK, 12:45 and ribs are on. I ran into an issue with the cooker WAY over temping, according to my therm it was pushing 350 or so, but I'm not sure the therm was calibrated properly. I shut down all the vents and gave it some time and now it's about 250. That's a lot better.

Dang, they smell great too! More reports in about 2 hours when I next check them. Cya.
 
Good luck with the cook, and welcome to the membrane club
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I just put two racks of spares on (using the last of the BRITU rub) the kettle (Performer) and am keeping my own fingers crossed. It's my first time cooking spareribs other than in the oven -- spares are getting surprisingly hard to find up here.

One of the racks (the nice square St. Louis cut) is "seasoned", which seems to involve soaking them in pork stock and sodium phosphate (yum), while the long skinny rack is "pork side ribs, center cut removed" which seems to have replaced "spare ribs" in the Canadian meat cutting lexicon. It looks like a regular rack of spares but cut in half the long way. The "center cut section" of the ribs gets sold separately at a higher price -- not sure if is really more tender or just "looks like baby backs".

Just after I took this pic I realized I hadn't put the drip tray under the ribs. Lots of cursing while I pulled everything off and started again.

http://pages.interlog.com/~johnb/ht/DSCN2975.jpg

Holding pretty steady at 250 after three hours on the initial load of coals. Had to move it into the shade to keep temps down. The skirt (on the left) reached 170F after just over an hour, so there's nothing left of that except a grease spot on my t-shirt
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Lee, how are your ribs going ? Have the neighbors started hanging around looking hungry yet?

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Sorry for the delay, got busy getting the yardwork done. So over the fumes of the weedeater and freshly cut grass, every now and then the wind would blow some smoke my way just to tease me! I just got finished showering and cleaning up.

About 2:30 I turned the ribs and applied a little more BRITU seasoning. My thinking is you can't have too much, eh?

Then at 4:00 I put on a foil pan filled with diced red potatoes and onions and whole clove garlic. They had been sprinkled with olive oil and italian seasonings.. mmmmm. Those are going to roast on the bottom rack until 5:30-ish or so. Throughout the day the temp's been holding steady at 250-ish or so on the top rack.

We've got some corn to go with it and my lovely lady picked up a six-pack each of 1554 and Warsteiner beers. Oh, and some french baggettes for the bread food group. Wait, the beers covered that.
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Gonna be an awesome dinner and thank you all to the collective for the posts and info. Without this board these ribs wouldn't be looking as good as they do. Let's see if I can get some pics... BRB.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lee A:
About 2:30 I turned the ribs and applied a little more BRITU seasoning. My thinking is you can't have too much, eh? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Sorry I didn't see this sooner. The BRITU bears paying special attention to what might seem casual instructions. When it says "a good overall dusting", it means just once over lightly and that's it. Mesquite would also not have been my wood of choice. Here's to hoping your BRITU doesn't turn out salty and bitter.
 
Oh my lord. We just pulled the ribs and sampled them and... um wow. Wow WoW WOW.

And no, it's not me being an awesome cook, it's this board. Thanks again guys.

Now I need to pull the potatoes and let the cooker cool down so I can fire it up for the brisket tonight. Whew, happy Daddy's Day everyone!!
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Hey Doug, I appreciate your comments, thank you much. I wanted to check if the ribs were too salty so I went back and tasted a couple more, and no, they were fine. I might have to go triple check in a minute tho. Hehe.

The potatoes needed to go on earlier, they still have a while to cook. So the ribs are all foiled up sitting in a warm oven waiting.

As far as the mesquite, I grew up in San Antonio where mesquite grows like weeds. It was the number 1 choice for smoking back home. I love the stuff.

John, looks like you're going to eat as well as we will. What are you serving with those ribs?
 
Lee, those ribs look great.

I had a weird cook. I was bringing food to a get-together at my nephew's house, which IMO is the best of both worlds. You get to smoke stuff and share it with friends & family, but you don't have to clean the house before or after.

Dinner was going to be around 4:30, so I let the temps get up a bit to make sure the ribs would be done in ~4 hours on the kettle and 30 minutes in foil getting over there.

Dinner ended up around 7:30, so total cooking time was :

- 3.5 hours on the kettle

- 1 hour foiled in a preheated cooler on the way over (bridge closure = long detour)

- 1.5 hour foiled in the oven at 200F

- 1 hour with the foil partially opened in the oven a bit below 200F (we turned it off in despair)

- sauced and tossed on the gas grill for a quick sizzle before serving

All things considered, they were pretty good. Maybe a bit of a charcoally taste, not sure. I tried Kingsford briquettes this time rather than lump.

Also on the menu -- chicken kebabs, "big smokey" sausages, boiled corn (grilled for the adventurous), salad, baked potatoes, and ice cream bars. I can't take credit for anything besides the ribs, but it was a great meal and a nice afternoon.

Ain't summer great ?
 
Lovin' the summer. Of course I can't really see something as minor as chilly temps shying me away from my WSM.
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Sounds delish John, I wouldn't mind some ice cream right around now.

I used the Kingsford today as well and didn't notice any off flavors on the ribs, so not sure where that might have come from.
 
I'm wondering if it might be because I added the wood chunks near the end of the cook this time rather than at the beginning.
 
Adding smoke wood is more important at the beginning of the cook than at the end. As the bark forms around the meat it becomes more difficult for the smoke to penetrate the surface. On rib cooks I'll start with several chunks of smokewood and rarely add any into the cook unless I'm added more meat to the smoker.
 
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