Rack of ribs falling off hook

[RavenVail]

I have cooked dozens of racks of ribs on the PBC with very good results. However, during a couple cooks recently one of the racks fell off the hook toward the end of the cook, which is about two hours. (I prefer to wrap the ribs after a couple hours for the last hour or so of the cook.) I usually do baby back ribs and place the hook under the third bone instead of the second bone of the thinner or meatier end. This gives me a little more clearance above the coals since I have had some of the racks actually tough the coals.

Any thought on why this might happen and suggestions to keep it from happening in the future.

Thanks.

[boftx]

Use a smoker with real racks to put the meat on?

[GBA]

Cut your racks in half, I hang my ribs at the big end three bones down and do not wrap, no issues.

[Nate]

I have been double hooking (serial hooking) mine.

Run a hook like you normally would then run another hook that hangs off that hook... that way you have the rib nabbed in 2 spots. fzxdoc I believe was the one that told me about doing this.

[RavenVail]

Nate, I really like your suggestion. Thanks.
cstrfd4, I have used your method, especially when I only have a couple racks and use more that two types of rubs to see the difference.
Boftx, I will still use a grill with racks at times, but I have really liked the versatility and ease of the PBC, especially if I need to take a cooker to another location, like the lake for the 4th.

​Thanks so much to all of you for your input. I do appreciate you very much.

[fzxdoc]

Cutting the ribs in half AND double serial hooking them is the way I like to cook ribs in the PBC. That prevents the lower few ribs from possibly getting overdone and the double serial hook (hook the lower hook into the bottom of the upper one that is hooked on the rebar like Noah shows in his Brisket video) is great insurance. I haven't had a piece of meat drop into the fire yet (knock wood).

Kathryn

[JPP]

I've had a couple of times when I dropped a rack. Twice i was expecting it and of those times one was in my presence so it was quick to salvage... it seems nobody noticed at least. Once I missed it for a while however about 80% of the rack was still salvageable (the tip off was the large volume of smoke coming out towards the end of the cook). In all cases there were two factors involved. The first time was due to an improperly centered hook and two times I kind of messed the top ribs up somewhat peeling the membrane off. (duh, me not start peeling at big end no more). I guess I just don't like cuttin stuff in half...

[Histrix]

I hang ribs in my WSM and I place a grate on the fire ring just in case something falls they will not land in the ash/coals.

Shouldn't be too difficult to modify a grate to fit on top of the PBC fuel basket.

[Voltron15]

Pic of the above mentioned serial hooking. I have only ever had one rack fall and I was somewhat expecting it to happen.

[MBMorgan]

Shouldn't be too difficult to modify a grate to fit on top of the PBC fuel basket.

... where (unfortunately) whatever falls will sear/burn almost as quickly as if it had fallen directly onto the coals.

Instead, follow advice from folks like fzxdoc or Jerod Broussard or any one of the other hardcore PBC gurus around AR:

1. If you have enough hooks, cut rib racks in half and either single or double hook (cheap insurance).
2. If you need to hang full length racks, then double hook every time.
3. If the 8 hooks that came with your PBC aren't enough, then buy another set from the Pit Barrel Cooker folks.

[Histrix]

By the time ribs have cooked enough to be tender enough to fall apart there really isn't a massive bed of coals raging across the entire fuel box. Never had ribs fall but did have a chicken fall off a hook once. The big "boom" I heard let me know I should go take a look. Bird was fine.

[lschweig]

I tend to hook lower down the rack like below the 5th bone which raises the end away from the coals and the top just flops over the hook and have not had a problem.

[jbeck1986]

I had one rack fall apart last night. I had too much going on and let them get over cooked. The other 2 racks were fine. I even double hooked them. This ended up saving me a 3rd of the rack is all.

I did let the heat get up higher cuz I wanted to Carmelize the sauce faster. I should have sauced them and pulled them sooner. I was busy making a mixture of multiple BBQ sauces and adding some seasonings to it so they had some heat to the sauce. Nobody else likes it as spicy as I do. If I had been more prepared and organized I wouldn't have overcooked it and would have been fine.

Lesson learned....