My daughter is graduating from college later this month and we are having a party on the Sunday night she graduates. She wants baby back ribs. Since I'll be busy all day I won't be able to do a 'normal' cook. My plan is to smoke 15-20 racks on the Thursday before the party. About 90 minutes at high heat. I'll then refrigerate the ribs until Sunday. Sunday afternoon I'll put them in the oven for about an hour (more?) at 350. Hopefully I'll be able to finish them off on a grill before serving. I don't want them falling off the bone. Is this a viable plan? Any suggestions or comments are appreciated.
How Is this for a plan?
- Thread starter Joe O'C
- Start date
This is more of a question for Kevin Kruger, but I'll take a stab at it. I would probably heavily cold smoke the ribs for an hour or more, then rub and cook in the oven the whole way on Sunday. My reasoning is that you can cook them in the oven at the same time and temperature you normally would, and if they're cold smoked the first time around you won't have to worry about overcooking.
Dave from Denver
TVWBB Wizard
I would personally smoke them longer until they're cooked almost all the way. Then day of the party you can apply sauce and grill to finish or finish in a very hot oven.
Jim H.
TVWBB All-Star
I agree with Dave. Cook them almost fully before chilling them. I had an almost bad experience with two Boston butts over Christmas this past year.
During Christmas we went out of town. I tried to smoke two Boston butts a day ahead of time so I could put them in the oven for dinner the next night. I smoked them for 3 hrs., double wrapped in foil, and placed them into a pan in the fridge. We traveled to where we were going the next day, so I put them into a cooler to keep them cold. I left them outside on the balcony overnight, since temps were in the 20's, thinking I could put them into the oven @ 250°~300° the next morning for a few hours and they would be OK. Problem was that heating shoulders in the oven from 150°~160° right off the smoker is MUCH different than heating them up from the mid 20's.
Ended up taking nearly 8 hours to get them to slicing temp near 170°, and we had to delay dinner for a while and ended up slicing some of the shoulder just to be able to eat. This is not to say that ribs will take that much longer after you have cooled them, but plan ahead for longer time to heat them up.
During Christmas we went out of town. I tried to smoke two Boston butts a day ahead of time so I could put them in the oven for dinner the next night. I smoked them for 3 hrs., double wrapped in foil, and placed them into a pan in the fridge. We traveled to where we were going the next day, so I put them into a cooler to keep them cold. I left them outside on the balcony overnight, since temps were in the 20's, thinking I could put them into the oven @ 250°~300° the next morning for a few hours and they would be OK. Problem was that heating shoulders in the oven from 150°~160° right off the smoker is MUCH different than heating them up from the mid 20's.
Ended up taking nearly 8 hours to get them to slicing temp near 170°, and we had to delay dinner for a while and ended up slicing some of the shoulder just to be able to eat. This is not to say that ribs will take that much longer after you have cooled them, but plan ahead for longer time to heat them up.
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try a trial run next weekend with 3 racks to see how it works out. On Thursday I'm thinking 90 minutes at high heat then an hour in the oven at 350. Normally I would just foil in the smoker but since I'm doing so many racks the weekend of the party that won't be feasible. I think I have to use the oven. I'll put the racks in the fridge until Sunday and then reheat them on the grill Sunday evening. Should I take the ribs out of the fridge ahead of time on Sunday or perhaps even throw them in the oven to get the chill out before I put them on the grill? Thanks again.
I finished phase 1 of the trial run today. Smoked 3 racks of baby backs for 90 minutes at high heat. The lid temp got up to around 325 after 1:15. I then foiled them and popped them in the oven at 350 for 40 minutes. They came out looking great. I could have eaten them right then but that would have defeated the purpose.
I put them in the fridge and will reheat them on Sunday for dinner. My thought is to take them out of the fridge about an hour before I reheat them. I plan to put a glaze on them and heat them on the grill for about 10 minutes per side. Do you think this should be enough to heat them all the way through? Thanks in advance for any advice.
JSMcdowell
TVWBB All-Star
How'd they come out? I get request for ribs all the time but I refuse a lot because I can't cook them in the time allowed.
Bob Sample
TVWBB Diamond Member
If your reheating them on the grill them then why not cut them into individual bones, sauce 'em and then grill them. I do it like this all the time.
The ribs came out great. I took them out of the fridge about 45 minutes before I reheated them. They were still real cold so this accomplished nothing
. I used the smoker as a grill and put the grate over the coal ring. I put the ribs on meat side down for about 5 minutes, flipped them for another 5 minutes with the dome lid on (it was the first time I ever tried this, worked great. Temp got up to 325). I then lightly sauced the ribs with a version of the #5 sauce and flipped them over meat side down for another 3 minutes or so. My wife & son wanted them 'saucier' so they put more sauce on. All in all a successful experiment. Now I'm going to have to try to pull this off with 20 racks instead of 3.
Bob, I was planning on cutting them into individual bones after reheating them and putting them in chafing dishes to stay warm in a buffet line. I hadn't thought about cutting them first. That would certainly seem to speed up the reheating process. Thanks for the suggestion.
Bob, I was planning on cutting them into individual bones after reheating them and putting them in chafing dishes to stay warm in a buffet line. I hadn't thought about cutting them first. That would certainly seem to speed up the reheating process. Thanks for the suggestion.
20racks cut into individual bones seems like a LOT of flipping an fiddling. Personally I look at this as a time problem. If you have one 18.5" grill and 20 racks to finish that would mean 7 rounds of 3 racks. Even if each rack only takes 8 min you are looking at spreading out the food over an hour.
For my 2 cents I would say do like you did by smoking ahead. Warm all the ribs in a 200F oven in foiled dishes. When it's time to go you will basically just have to lay them across the sauce, grill (1-2 min), flip, sauce, grill (1-2 min)and then onto plates.
Like I said... just my opinion and it all depends on how you want to spend the party.
For my 2 cents I would say do like you did by smoking ahead. Warm all the ribs in a 200F oven in foiled dishes. When it's time to go you will basically just have to lay them across the sauce, grill (1-2 min), flip, sauce, grill (1-2 min)and then onto plates.
Like I said... just my opinion and it all depends on how you want to spend the party.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Scooter B:
20racks cut into individual bones seems like a LOT of flipping an fiddling. Personally I look at this as a time problem. If you have one 18.5" grill and 20 racks to finish that would mean 7 rounds of 3 racks. Even if each rack only takes 8 min you are looking at spreading out the food over an hour.
For my 2 cents I would say do like you did by smoking ahead. Warm all the ribs in a 200F oven in foiled dishes. When it's time to go you will basically just have to lay them across the sauce, grill (1-2 min), flip, sauce, grill (1-2 min)and then onto plates.
Like I said... just my opinion and it all depends on how you want to spend the party. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
After talking it over with my friend who is in charge of reheating the ribs Sunday (coincidentally he is named Scooter) I think we will leave the ribs in half racks for reheating and then cut them as they come off the grill. I think I'll take your suggestion and I will reheat them in the oven before throwing them on the grill Sunday. 200 degrees foiled until heated up and then onto the grill with sauce for a few minutes.
I wound up doing 21 racks today (2 shifts...11 then 10). 90 minutes in smoke and 45 minutes foiled in the oven. I cut the racks in half and put them in the fridge. Nothing to do until Sunday.
20racks cut into individual bones seems like a LOT of flipping an fiddling. Personally I look at this as a time problem. If you have one 18.5" grill and 20 racks to finish that would mean 7 rounds of 3 racks. Even if each rack only takes 8 min you are looking at spreading out the food over an hour.
For my 2 cents I would say do like you did by smoking ahead. Warm all the ribs in a 200F oven in foiled dishes. When it's time to go you will basically just have to lay them across the sauce, grill (1-2 min), flip, sauce, grill (1-2 min)and then onto plates.
Like I said... just my opinion and it all depends on how you want to spend the party. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
After talking it over with my friend who is in charge of reheating the ribs Sunday (coincidentally he is named Scooter) I think we will leave the ribs in half racks for reheating and then cut them as they come off the grill. I think I'll take your suggestion and I will reheat them in the oven before throwing them on the grill Sunday. 200 degrees foiled until heated up and then onto the grill with sauce for a few minutes.
I wound up doing 21 racks today (2 shifts...11 then 10). 90 minutes in smoke and 45 minutes foiled in the oven. I cut the racks in half and put them in the fridge. Nothing to do until Sunday.
The ribs came out great! We reheated them in the oven at 200 in foiled pans lined with raw bacon and a little bit of diluted apple juice for about 30 minutes. We did this based on a tip from a friend of mine who is a chef at a local restaurant. I'm not sure how much the bacon helped but it certainly didn't hurt. We took the ribs from the pans onto a hot grill for about 5 minutes per side, the last couple of minutes sauce side down. We then cut them into individual ribs and put them onto the serving line in a hotel pan. We probably went through about 3/4 of the ribs on Sunday at the party. We reheated the leftovers on a flattop grill Monday and they were still great.
Many thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I was really stressing out over this since this was the main entree and the input here really helped.
Many thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I was really stressing out over this since this was the main entree and the input here really helped.