First rib cook on the EX6 - odd results

[bmillin]

After burning it off and cooking polenta for christmas dinner, tried a rack of ribs. It was a full rack cut down to St. Louis style, my normal rub etc. Set the unit to 225 and watched the probes, fireboard and the weber probes showed it a bit above that but not much.

I usually plan 6 hours unwrapped and and it is OK if they are done in 5 once in a while. Imagine my surprise to go out at 3 1/2 hours to take a look and have the rack break in half when I tried to flip it. They were falling off the bone falling apart at that point.

Not sure if this was just a fluke due to the cut of meat, or something I don't get about pellet grills. My usual rig is a 22" Weber / SNS setup which I feel is dialed in and doesn't surprise me very often. I've cooked at the same temps in a UDS and an offset with similar timing, 5-6 hours. Do the pellet poopers cook faster?

[Donw]

I would say the meat as 225 from a pellet is the same as 225 from any other heat source. However one thing to consider was the placement of the ambient temperature probe in relationship to the area of the cooker the meat was placed. Most cookers have both hot and cold spots. The probe placed in a cool spot might read 225 but areas near the heat source could be much hotter than that.

[texastweeter]

Also, I have heard that a pellet grill is a much more humid environment. Dunno if that is true or if it even makes a difference. I run stick burners, charcoal, and gas pits.

[Redwng]

I've had pellet grills for 8 years and have never had that happen.

I have to add that being an engineer I am obsessive about knowing where any hot/cold spots reside. Mt wife doesn't even question anymore when she sees 5 analog thermometers in a cooker. I will even put some GrillGrates inside and check the temp in spots with my IR.

[bbqLuv]

My guess is the temp was off. I Never had that happen unless overcooked. So, my guess is overcooked ribs.

Remove the bones, put the ribs on a roll, slather with BBQ sauce, pickles, onions and you have a homemade McRib.

Of course, if you use PBR BBQ sauce you will have a great PBR McRibs.
BBQ Beer Sauce Recipe | Food Network

[grantgallagher]

interestingly, i got my first pellet grill about a month ago and had something similar happen to me. Ribs on my kettle i can usually count on being done in 5 hours. did 5 on the pellet and the were completely falling off the bone, not bad, just not what i expected. i cant in good mind attribute it to the fact they were cooked on a pellet bc as mentioned above, temp is temp.

After that cook i stuck my thermoworks smoke ambient probe in there and discovered it reads about 20 degrees higher until the pellet gets to target temp then they were pretty consistent. Not enough of a difference for me to point the finger, i wrote it off to a weird cook basically.

[glitchy]

My food usually takes longer on a pellet grill, but that’s usually because I cook on lower temps than I do on charcoal. You likely have three factors at play with the SmokeFire, convection, temps being a bit off, and some more direct heat with the SmokeFire design if you weren’t over drip pans.

On the main grate, just a little right of center usually runs a little hot…or at least used to. I’m not sure that’s something they could fix with firmware as I think it’s the burn pot and fan design that causes it.

[bmillin]

Thanks for the replies. I had the Weber probes and my FireBoard probe going an temps were fairly consistent once it settled in, it ran about 10 degrees hotter than the onboard sensor but pretty good right to left.

[bmillin]

More oddness. Set to 250, but have the Weber probes on the grill right and left and they are over 250. The FireBoard ambient temp sensor is on the grill right in front of the onboard sensor, which doesn’t seem to display a temp.

[bmillin]

Ok bad pic. FireBoard was showing 300

[glitchy]

Pics can be deceiving, but it looks like the FB probe is 4-5 inches away from the grill probe and closer to the pan than the grill probe. It is also close to the spot I always found the hottest in my SmokeFire. So, the pan could be deflecting a lot of hot air right to your FB probe. While it’s better to use pans with the SmokeFire, you might need to put your probe near the food and adjust the grill to get that probe at the cooking temp you want. I’ve done that ever since I got a Fireboard and rarely is the grill controller set exactly on the temp I’m wanting, though usually within 20 degrees.

[bmillin]

You are probably correct. I’ll run some better tests.

[glitchy]

bmillin I wasted a lot of pellets just doing test runs on the grills to understand it’s oddities. Hopefully, those are a lot less now than before. The wet smoke kits they sell are kinda handy as the move pans under the grate and you can just put short pans directly on the flavorizer bars too. It seems like temps did a little better that way. BBQ guru sells a nice probe mount that has a silicone wedge you can stick in the grate, I used that to put a FB probe about a 1/2” away from grill probe.