Is foiling ribs effective without adding liquid?


 
JeffB

JeffB

TVWBB Pro
I just foiled 2 racks of baby backs with brown sugar, parkay and honey after 3 hours on my 22.5 WSM.

Will foiling make them tender if I don't add any liquid like apple juice or apple cider vinegar? I was out of apple juice so I skipped it.

Thanks.
 
That should work just fine Jeff. The ribs I did 2 weeks ago had no liquid and turned out great. Did have a drizzle of peach nector but just a drizzle. They were St. Louis Spares but the principle is the same. Enjoy those ribs and post pics.
 
If they're anything like the last batch I did they'll give off lots of liquid on their own. Just like you, I didn't add any liquid and I ended up with about three cups of fluid from two racks. Mine were spare ribs, not baby backs, so YMMV. I defatted the fluid and used a reduction as the basis for a sauce. It was excellent.
 
Bob Ivey said:
That should work just fine Jeff. The ribs I did 2 weeks ago had no liquid and turned out great. Did have a drizzle of peach nector but just a drizzle. They were St. Louis Spares but the principle is the same. Enjoy those ribs and post pics.
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Thanks for the help. They were excellent but probably a bit overcooked because they were falling off the bone a bit more than I would have liked. Nevertheless my family loved them and the blackberry BBQ sauce I made for the first time was a great accompaniment to the pork ribs. I started with a modest application of Memphis Dust and smoked them with a combination of mesquite and cherry wood chips.

They spent 3 hours on my WSM at around 270*, and 1-1/2 hours foiled with brown sugar, Parkay and honey. They were very good and there are no leftovers. I needed this cook to be honest -- life is rough and successful cooks help me survive and move along. Pics below...


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[/url]RIbs 3 by jwbryson1, on Flickr[/IMG]

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[/url]Ribs 2 by jwbryson1, on Flickr[/IMG]

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[/url]Ribs 1 by jwbryson1, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
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Jeff, those are some great looking ribs and the smoke ring is awesome. You know everyone loved them since there were non left. You did great.
Hope your life gets much less rough. I can understand how you feel. My business is way down and other thing are weighing heavy so any victory is important. I know life will get better for all of us. Hang in there and keep those great cooks coming.
 
While I do prefer to foil, I no longer add extra liquids. The natural fat and juices seem to give off enough to do the job!! Those are some good looking bones!!!
 
You dont need liquid. Maybe, in my experiece, this will estends foiling time.
I tell you one more thing: to preserve bark I foil and cook meat side UP
 
JayHeyl said:
If they're anything like the last batch I did they'll give off lots of liquid on their own. Just like you, I didn't add any liquid and I ended up with about three cups of fluid from two racks. Mine were spare ribs, not baby backs, so YMMV. I defatted the fluid and used a reduction as the basis for a sauce. It was excellent.
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This is pretty accurate I would say. Mine did not give off quite three cups of fluid, but they certainly released a lot of fluid which I did not use, and instead just tossed into the trash. Maybe next time.

One thing I did learn is not to be shy with the dry rub. After that length of cook, the flavors of a dry rub can stay with the meat but it is not nearly as strong as you may expect.

That Memphis Dust recipe from the **Other** website is quite good. I did enjoy it.
 
I've found that adding water based liquid during foiling is that it draws off flavor.

Yes, it may contribute to the braising/tenderness effect but at the sacrifice of sucking out flavor from the ribs.
 
The following is from Harry Soo when I took his class. After an epic fail on ribs two weeks before class, I did 3 racks of St. Louis Spares using Harry's instructions and they were great.
The following part is pertinent here,
Foil at 2 1/2 to 3 hours with peach nectar, agave honey, brown sugar. The peach nectar is drizzled on the ribs after the honey and brown sugar. The peach drizzle is very light on the honey and brown sugar. In other words you are not pouring it all over the ribs in the foil. These were the best ribs I have ever had and will do this regularly. The ribs do sweat moisture all on there own. That moisture can be used as a base for a sauce if you so chose.
No need for pouring liquid in the foil package.
 
My 2 cents:

Foil speeds up the cook and produces a much more tender cook. The downside...kiss the crust good bye. I then tried the butcher paper method (first parchment then butcher paper) the parchment produced the same results as foil, and the butcher paper dried out the cook (mostly I did ribs) I finally decided the best cook (imho) requires no wrapping. That said, my max temp is 225. You get up into the 250's+, that's a game change (again, imho)
 
ChuckO said:
That said, my max temp is 225. You get up into the 250's+, that's a game change (again, imho)
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I have been using the DigiQ DX2 for about a year now and love the fact that it can help me control the temps on my WSM 22.5. I have also found that it is most useful in getting the heat UP to temp but not tempering the heat when it goes over the mark because it can't pull heat out of the system. So when I blew past 225* (my mark for this cook) I was stuck cooking at the higher temp. For the record, I used the MM and started with 20 lit coals. Perhaps next time I will start with closer to 12. For some reason, 12 lit coals to me just does not seem like enough coals to get up to temp on a unit as large as the 22.5.

I also did not use any water in my pan. Only foiled it for easy cleanup. No ceramic saucer either, although there is one hidden someplace in my garage for this very purpose...:rolleyes:
 
No additional liquids. Wrap tightly in foil and cook meat side down. Vent when done then slice, sauce and serve.
 
wrapping them before major rendering is the key,wrap too late and you will have to add,temps being stable make it easier to predict when,I prefer not to but its good either way
 
MikeCantell said:
wrapping them before major rendering is the key,wrap too late and you will have to add,temps being stable make it easier to predict when,I prefer not to but its good either way
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This matches my experience. When I wrap ribs (I've largely moved away from wrapping, preferring a lower temp cook - ~225 - and spritzing with apple juice at 30 minute intervals), I rarely add any liquid except maybe sauce. I never understood the use of parkay/margarine. They're basically oils/fats and ribs usually have plenty of fat on their own (when the jackets around the bones render). Obviously, lots of people do it (even some of the pros), but to me it seems like it would make them greasy.
 
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