Live posting my first Akorn cook of baby-back ribs

[Anton32828]

I'm starting this at 10:00 AM to have dinner ready by 6:00 PM. I thought it would be interesting to document my first Akorn cook here.

I seasoned it yesterday. The cast iron seasoned beautifully using vegetable shortening. I'll have to keep this Akorn in mind the next time I have to re-season my Lodge skillets.

The instructions on this site advise using a "full firebox" of lump, but my Akorn doesn't have a typical kamado-style firebox. I measured one and a half chimney-fulls of lump to get started. That seems like a decently full fire-pan. Hopefully it will last. I started the fire with one fire-starter plug in the top center of the pile.

[Anton32828]

I closed the lid with the bottom and top vents fully open. Once the heat gauge showed 150ish I added the heat diffuser stone and cooking grate, plus my pit probe. I closed down both top and bottom dampers to the "2" setting. A the temp crept up to 175 I adjusted both to 1.5 setting, then 1 on both at 225. Despite this the pit is at 280 by 11:00 AM. The bottom vent has perhaps 1/4 inch and the top vent has just a sliver of an opening. The dome 'heat indicator" shows 225ish, so there is a big difference between the food-grate reading and the dome indicator as expected.

Salt went on the ribs at 10:30. I'm using the standard recipe from the main page. It's a six pound double-pack from BJ's warehouse.

[JCBBQ]

Sweet! Keep 'em coming!

[Anton32828]

Ribs are on at 12:30.

I had previously adjusted the top vent to "1/2" (the position between zero and one on the dial). At this setting only the little half-moon cut-outs on the vent are open. The picture below is a shot of the vents from the underside of the lid.

The temperature has been holding at 298 since 11:30. The ribs will be fine, they'll just cook a little faster than I anticipated at this temp.

Some comic events happened when my plan went sideways. I was going to use a full size steam-table pan to catch the drippings. But no matter how I folded the thing, it would not fit. So then I had to run into the house, find the foil, remember to put on my welder's gloves, and then foil-wrap the hot smoking stone. The dog learned a few curse words during that event!

As of 12:50 the temp has dropped to 270. I assume that's the moisture from the ribs cooling down the pit.

The tiki was a father's day gift. It's there to scare off the rain spirits.

Maybe that should be my new site avatar...

[Anton32828]

1:30 temp kept dropping. I opened up the vents just a bit. Pit temp is now stable at 240. I'm happy to keep it there for the next few hours if it will let me.

[Troutman]

I like the totem pole, just enough room to set your beer on it

[klflowers]

Sweet!

[Mr. Bones]

I'm really enjoyin bein along on this adventure, Brother!

[Anton32828]

3:30pm. Three hours into the cook. Grate temp is 250. The ribs are not quite done via the "toothpick test," but they are definitely cooked. There's no bark. The surface looks steamed. Oh well. BBQ sauce can make them look better.

I opened the vents a little to see if I could get more airflow over these ribs.

[klflowers]

Looking good!

[Anton32828]

I pulled them at 4:30. The grate temp had climbed to 300 by then, since I decided to open the vents to give it some air flow. The surface was drier, but still not really "bark." I held them (wrapped) in the oven until 5:30, then sauced them and set the sauce in a 375 oven for 10 minutes. The pictures show just-off-the-grill, and the final sauced ribs.

Sweet Baby Ray's covers a LOT of problems, lol.

The family really enjoyed these, but as you can tell I am not satisfied with the result. It's good, just not as good as it could be.

Final thoughts:

Is it the cook or the cooker? A little of both. I am still a beginner, so there are tricks I could learn. I will know to flip the ribs on this cooker to make sure the surface fat has a chance to drain. I'll add some chunks of smoking wood (there were none in this cook, since the lump bag advertised "with hickory"). These things are definitely my learning curve.

On the other hand, the WSM allowed me to have great bark and great results on my very first rib cook. The design of that cooker has more airflow, which I'm pretty sure makes the difference in creating bark.

The Akorn gets points for temperature stability once I got it dialed in. It also didn't have the "white smoke" problem of the WSM. Maybe I should try lump the next time in my WSM.

Overall I like the Akorn. I'm glad I got it. It's just a completely different beast that I need to get used to.

[Troutman]

Makes me want to cook ribs this weekend !!!

[Anton32828]

The rain threatened, but held off. Tiki works as hoped.

[smokin fool]

Nice job on those ribs.
I went thru the same learning curve with my Keg as you will with the Acorn, learning how to use the dampers to control temps and I'm still learning.
And how much fuel you use, I was using too much charcoal. Cut back on the charcoal and have started putting in a 10-12 briquettes, seems to help keeping temps level.

[gdsim1]

Great thread! Thanks for letting us share in your cook.

[Henrik]

Nice ribs! It's frustrating and fun at the same time, learning a new cooker. As you progress, try to change just one variable at a time so you can tell what makes a difference. As for temps: try placing that fire starter plug at 12 o'clock (or anywhere near an 'edge' instead of dead center), that should help with temps not ramping up too fast in the beginning. When you place it dead center the fire can spread in all directions simultaneously. This is a minor tweak in the grand scheme of things, but could help.

[Anton32828]

Good suggestion, thanks!