For Memorial Day I smoked some BB in my PBC, and beef plates on my 18" WSM.. Even though I have many years with various pits, this was only the 2nd time doing beef ribs, My first attempt was successful, so I anticipated similar results.
Ribs came from Costco, 2 4-bone plates in one cryovac bag, thickness varying from 1" to 1.5". They were prepped, rubbed and cut into 2-bone slabs. Put on WSM dialed in to 225 via my Guru with a meat probe in the thickest part of one pair. Following MH recipe, they should have been done in 5-6 hours. At the 4 hour mark, meat probe read 194! Then seemed to stall, so I probed all slabs with MK4, and no part of the ribs measured over 180.
Side note: Been reading much pertaining to time, temp, and tenderness, so decided to trust the probe tenderness instead of time and/or temp.
At 5.5 hrs I probed all plates, they looked fantastic, with meat probe reading 203. They all probed like butter BUT temps were all 185-190 range. Because of the tenderness, I pulled them, placed in my Cambro, then finished the BB and all the other sides.
The juiciness of the beef when sliced into singles blue me away! For reasons I won't go into here, I wasn't able to sit down to eat for about 30 mins. The ribs were so tough, I could hardly chew them, and there was some rarer areas I didn't see when slicing.
Conclusion: Stick to temp to determine beef rib readiness, don't always trust probes (threw meat probe away!) Don't try something new for an important cook.
Thoughts and/or suggestions greatly appreciated.
Ribs came from Costco, 2 4-bone plates in one cryovac bag, thickness varying from 1" to 1.5". They were prepped, rubbed and cut into 2-bone slabs. Put on WSM dialed in to 225 via my Guru with a meat probe in the thickest part of one pair. Following MH recipe, they should have been done in 5-6 hours. At the 4 hour mark, meat probe read 194! Then seemed to stall, so I probed all slabs with MK4, and no part of the ribs measured over 180.
Side note: Been reading much pertaining to time, temp, and tenderness, so decided to trust the probe tenderness instead of time and/or temp.
At 5.5 hrs I probed all plates, they looked fantastic, with meat probe reading 203. They all probed like butter BUT temps were all 185-190 range. Because of the tenderness, I pulled them, placed in my Cambro, then finished the BB and all the other sides.
The juiciness of the beef when sliced into singles blue me away! For reasons I won't go into here, I wasn't able to sit down to eat for about 30 mins. The ribs were so tough, I could hardly chew them, and there was some rarer areas I didn't see when slicing.
Conclusion: Stick to temp to determine beef rib readiness, don't always trust probes (threw meat probe away!) Don't try something new for an important cook.
Thoughts and/or suggestions greatly appreciated.
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