Three racks of baby backs

[Guest]

Hello all!
On Sunday I smoked 3 racks of bb's, each one seasoned differently.
Saturday night I seasoned one rack with Chile-man cajun rub and my addition of turbinado sugar, another with just garlic salt and pepper, the last with Mary's Cherry rub and a slathering of cherry yogurt - all spent the night in the fridge.

Sunday morn I prepped the WSM, this time going for the sand in the ECB charcoal pan deal for an easier clean-up. With the Minion method applied, hickory and apple wood for the smoke, the ribs
went on approx 11:am via a rib rack, all vents @ 100% open.

I didn't touch a thing for the first 3 hours, the WSM was steady @ 240* lid temp. I then flipped the ribs in the rack and sprayed with a/j- let'em go another 1.5 hours. The temp slowly rose to 250* so I adjusted the bottom vents to 33%. After 4.5 hours each rack was sprayed again with a/j and foiled for 1 hour.

In that last hour, the lid mounted Trend thermometer soared to 270* so I shut all bottom vents down asap. After 15 minutes no change in temperature. Hmmmmm, do I have a leak? I then closed the top vent to 50% to see if that would help. Again no change. Closed it to 25%, nothing. /infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

I had a half hour to go. I un-foiled the bones and sauced the 2 racks without the yogurt with a mild KC Masterpiece sauce because my Wife said so.
I sauced the yogurt bones with a kicked-up McKenna's sauce that had a little bit of the cherry yogurt whipped in.

The lid temp was still high @ 265*. I got to have a air leak. But with water in the pan I never had this loss of control. Was it the sand? I dunn-o!?

The ribs came off after a 6 hour cook. These were my best yet. The meat had a better texture after only 1 hour of foiling yet still fell off the bone. The taste of the yogurt flavored bones were just OK. I couldn't pick out the robust cherry flavoring I thought I would taste. The other bones were excellent. Next time I'll smoke a rack "without foiling". But in the mean time I gotta troubleshoot for an air leak.

Thanks.

Got to luuuuuv the smoke!

 

[Allan Jones]

The heat required to boil off the water ( phase conversion to steam) is now available to raise the internal temperature. Just some old thermdynamics!

 

[Mike Chavez]

I know I have only 1 cook with wsm under my belt but when I had small spike challange I burped the cooker for about 3 or 4 seconds and that helped alot.

 

[Henry Joe Peterson]

Mike,

Check to see if your bottom and middle sections fit snugly. That's where air leaks are common.

My WSM is a little "off-round" so you can see small gaps where air can leak in. Hence the same probelm you had of consistently high temps.

See the torubleshooting section of this site for more tips. It's very helpful.

What I do is make a foil gasket where the two pieces meet. Lay foil sheets around the top of the charcoal pan, leaving plenty of excess foil to hang outside the WSM. Then set the middle section on top of the foil and slide it into place on the bottom seciton. Make sure it fits snug. Then crimp the foil hanging outside the WSM over the seam wheret he two sections meet. Forms a nice seal and will keep your temps down to the ideal 225-250 range.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Henry Joe. You nailed the problem without being here. There is quite a gap at the center section/bottom section coupling. Never had that problem before. Your foil gasket scenario seems like a good bet. What did come to mind was the weight of the sand in the ECB charcoal/water pan.
I wonder if that had anything to do with it? I'll check it out and post the findings.
Thanks again.

 

[Jim Minion]

Mike
There is something you said towards the end of the orginal post, the texture of the ribs was the best yet. You may be on to something with higher pit temp at the end of the cook.
265 -270? pit temps don't bother me when cooking ribs, pork butt, or poultry that much.
Don't want the pit over 275? for long stretches of time if there is a lot of sugar in the rub or a glaze on the meat to burn.
Jim