Searwood 600: St. Louis and Baby Backs


 

Chris in Louisiana

TVWBB All-Star
My third cook on the Searwood was a rack each of St. Louis and Baby-back Ribs.

The baby backs were fairly large at 3.84 lbs. The St. Louis were only 3.67 lbs.

Hit the baby backs with the relatively sweet Memphis Meat Dust (recipe at Amazing Ribs).

The St. Louis got a more savory/spicy blend of salt/pepper/garlic/onion/paprika (from View to a Grill on YouTube), plus a generous amount of Kinder’s Red Jalapeno Garlic blend.

I went with 225 based on several videos I watched. That's lower than I usually cook ribs on the WSM or kettle, but I tried something new. And I did not check to verify if it was really up to 225.

12:45 p.m. Meat on cold grill (Baby back on top; St. Louis on top)
12:54 Grill hit 225
4:00 (3 hours): wrap in butcher paper with some butter
6:00 (2 more hours) (after checking at 1.5 hours) remove from paper wrap (in retrospect, the ribs really needed longer in the wrap, due to lower cook temp, size of ribs, or both)
7:30 (1.5 hours more), with light sauce applied a couple times

The flavor was good, but despite the 6.5 hours of cook time, and two hours in wrap, they needed more time (in the wrap) for tenderness.

Next time I will go with at least 250 if not 275 to speed things up and hopefully get better tenderness. My usual rib times on the Kettle or WSM at higher temps are more like 3/1.5/.5-1, and they are almost falling off by then.

I like the Kinder’s Red Jalapeno Garlic blend on wings, but I've learned (not for the first time) that I prefer a sweet or basic (and not spicy) rub on ribs. I like to play around with rubs, but I should know by now not to go spicy on ribs.

The cook was a bit disappointing, but I know what I'll do different next time.

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Cheesy Smashed Broccoli, recipe from the Cookie + Kate blog
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This was the pellet level when I turned on the grill. Used Weber pellets. I filled to the line/ridge that you can see in the after photo.
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This was the level in the hopper at the end of the cook. It really sipped pellets at the low 225 temp.
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On temp, from my own experience, 275° is better with the same results as 225° and you save a lot of time. Also, once wrapped, I like to bump to 300° as you’re basically braising and rendering in this phase. Then keep 300° for the bark reset. I gave up on 225° ribs as I couldn’t drink that many beers and still feel good while waiting for the cook to end 🤣

You also might want to try party ribs where you cut each individual rib, put your rib and and cook em at 275°

On the WSK I can get to dinner service that way in 3 hours start to finish with great bark and a complete render on the ribs.

Just some thoughts. I think your ribs look great.
 
Yep one thing that I think has really upped my rib game is using higher temps (225-250) when I'm doing them. Obviously spares will cook a bit longer than baby backs but both seem to benefit from slightly higher temps and shorter times rather than long drawn out cooks under 200.
I also don't bother with all the whiz bang golly gee stuff some do. (again my theory of less is more and if you lookin' you ain't cookin') So no wrapping, no butter no honey (bee spit yuk), just score the membrane, trim, season with a decent rub or just plain S&P, slap them in and leave them alone until time to sauce (if wanted as I don't always sauce). If I do sauce I increase my temp to 300-325 for the final stage to help set the sauce. Otherwise I don't touch them until my thermos read upper 190s (195-199) probe test. Maybe take them higher to 203-205. Then wrap, rest 30 min, enjoy.
 

 

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