Preparing to smoke my first dino rack

[DaveD]

Thanks for all the input folks! Full disclosure, I have yet to smoke a brisket (this will be my 13th smoke not counting batches of bacon) so I lack that experience base. I did some chuck ribs a couple weeks ago that were spectacular, but they had next to no fatcap on them to remove. Like gboss, I also enjoy a little fat other than the intramuscular kind, so I will trim, shall we say, enthusiastically but not aggressively. Now to hope the rain holds off till after I finish...!

[gboss]

I'm going to go slightly against the consensus here and say that I don't trim all of the fat down on the chuck short ribs I've smoked. I understand Meathead point completely about the myths, pros, and cons involved. However, the fact is that I really enjoy eating a bit of the fat, too. Most of the fat that's on short ribs (chuck at least, not much experience with plate) is fairly delicious and I like to leave a bit on to enjoy with the meat. Not a lot, but I don't take them down to the red either. Looking forward to seeing your results.

[Mudkat]

Now that looks like fun! I agree trim the fat and go all brisket on it.

[Jfrosty27]

I also trim right down to the meat. Plenty of fat inside. This is my absolute favorite BBQ. I'm jealous. Now I need to order a couple racks!

[au4stree]

I recently did beef ribs, I trimmed them down to the meat or at least as good as I could get it. Like someone said above, treat like brisket. There’s enough intramuscular fat they’ll stay moist.

[pkadare]

I'm with Steve B here. Think of these like a point with bones. Loads of intramuscular fat in them so there's no real need to leave any fat cap at all and then you get to eat the bark rather than cut it off and pitch it along with the fat that most folks won't eat. Keep the trimmed fat for tallow or for making up your fat percentage for ground beef. Yummy!

[bbqLuv]

Looking good in the neighborhood.

[GolfGeezer]

Agree 100% with removing most of the fat. As Meathead and Doc Boner state in their cooking guides on the free side, the surface/external fat doesn't do anything for the meat flavor-wise or cooking wise. Those ribs have plenty of fat inside.

[bbqLuv]

Brisket on a bone. Good choice. According to some YouTubers, you can trim to expose the meat for seasoning. Others not so much. When I have smoked beef ribs on my pellet grill, I do so like a brisket: trim, season, Smoke, wrap, set the bark.

[Steve B]

I would take it right down to the meat on top. Like this. This is after seasoning

[STEbbq]

I would treat it like you would a brisket and trim to your desired level of fat. Trimming Dino ribs is perfectly fine.

[HawkerXP]

If you'll leave it on your front stoop, I'll zip by and trim it for you. All I need is your address.

[DaveD]

Hi folks,

I've got a 7-lb rack of dino ribs from Porter Road that I'm planning to smoke on Saturday, weather authorities permitting. Got a question about whether/how much to trim the fat cap off this baby. Here are two photos, showing that the cap is quite thin along much of the surface but toward one corner it appears to thicken some. It's clear that some trimming was done prior to packaging. My question for the Collective is, how much more should I trim, if any? I get that you don't want to just season the fat, you want it to get to the meat, but I don't want to overdo it. Thanks for any input.

Thin at this edge (that's a standard pyrex baking dish for scale):



Thicker at this corner: