Last night ribs


 
K

Kevin MM

TVWBB Member
I smoked three racks of baby back ribs last night. I thought they came out really good but I did run into some problems. My temp on my digi q was so different then the temperature on the lid. I ended up moving the pit clamp a couple of times and then the temperature reading came down. Is their a specific spot on the grate you are supposed to clamp that onto? I also noticed a big discrepancy when I foiled the ribs and placed them back. Could it have been because I have the 18.5 their wasn't that much circulation so the heat never really reached the lid thermometer? The bottom of the ribs were burnt, what would cause that?
 
I have never found my lid thermometer to be accurate. Depending on the food, how much grate is used, etc. I have found the lid thermo to be off by as much as 50 degrees. I have seen it run higher and lower.

Try to place your grate sensor away from the food some, but not at the edge of the grate so it is reading the hottest air coming up from the coals at the edges. This is not always easy depending on how much food you have on. I have a "roach clip" probe and I clip a clothespin to the grate then clip the roach clip to the top to get the temp about 2" above the grate.

When you place the foil pack back on, was the probe near it? This will throw the temp reading off. Usually if I foil, I leave everything (vents) where they were and don't worry about the temp since you should really only be foiling for a short period of time anyway.
 
Set up a photobucket account. Its free. When you upload a pic to the site, there will be 4 links on the left side after you click on one of your pictures. If you click the 4th link down, the "image" link, it will turn yellow and say copied.

Then just come back to your post and right click "paste" in your post. A bunch of gibberish will come up but when you preview or hit submit the pictures will be shown
 
If you foil your ribs, there's a good chance that you had your lid off for at least a few if not several minutes. That's a whole lotta air getting in to stoke the fire, and that might be why your ribs burned some.

That's the part I'm teaching my son now, is when you have to open the lid, have the event totally planned out, so that you have the lid off for as little as possible
 
Kevin;
The 18.5" WSM is really not big enough to lay the ribs out flat without overcooking the ends (the edge of the grate is where all of the hot air comes up from the bottom). I have an 18.5 as well as a Mini-Joe and a 14.5. On all three, I use two rib racks (one on each grate). I cut all of the ribs in half ( six or seven bones in each piece). You can put four halfs in each rib rack (I use a pair of Brinkman rib racks, about $9.95 each). That way I get perfectly evenly cooked ribs. Further, I can do eight half racks of ribs at a time (four full racks of ribs).

Just a thought...

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
Thanks for the suggestions, I new I should have gotten the bigger one!! Can you still foil the ribs if you put them in racks?
 
What I do is take the rib rack with the ribs it in, set the whole thing in a foil pan, put some apple juice in it then foil over the whole top of the pan. You can buy several different sizes of foil pans but one size (I cant remember which one) just fits in the 18.5 if you squeeze the corners in.

You get the same effect as foiling each slab.

.....however, I have been cooking ribs lately without foil and find I like the results better. Either way, play around with it and see what you like


btw, the ribs look great. Glad you got the pics figured out. And that's a nice halibut
 
Kevin;
I remove the ribs from the racks and just stack them on the two grates after the initial cook. Or, you can just put them in an aluminum pan as Rick suggests. Then, if you sauce and want to continue to cook to set the sauce, just remove from the foil and put them back in the racks for a few more minutes.

I cook my ribs in the racks until the rub is set before I foil them. As stated before, I pile the foiled ribs in the smoker (four on each rack). After I have judged them tender enough, I remove from the foil, sauce them, and depend on the heat from the ribs to set the sauce.

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
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