Had to show this short rib plate...

[DaveD]

Got out this 6.4lb/2.9kg Prime plate of Wild Fork short rib from the chestie for tomorrow's meal - doing something special for my lovely bride, after we just put her daughter and two grandkids on the first of three planes to get them home to Oregon from their 9-day visit.

I could see that it looked well marbled...


After trimming off that thin layer of fat and silverskin (about 7oz/200g), behold what is now revealed. Did someone say MARBLING??


I'll be running this on the SnS kettle with B&B charcoal and mesquite chunks until I reach Stallsville, then will foil boat 'em and transfer to the Pit Boss vertical pellet smoker for the rest of the way. This has been working out well, because the kettle needs virtually no adjusting for those first 4-5 hours. It starts to need some attention and tweaks after that, so moving it over to the PB once it's taken up pretty much all the smoke it's going to allows me to have nearly hands-free temp stability for the entire cook. This slab will probably need 10 hours before all is said and done, which is made a lot simpler using this combo approach.

Wish me luck, and I'll post updates here tomorrow.

[Oakgrovebacon]

Reads like a solid plan, looks like you will be eatin good!

[RonB]

That does look great.

[Jfrosty27]

Man those are going to be GOOD. I love these from Wild Fork. They’re always top notch. Smoke on Pitmaster.

[mrichie1229]

Sounds like a great approach. I love beef ribs! Good luck!

[fzxdoc]

You've got this.

Kathryn

[CHNeal]

Looks great! Can’t wait to see the results.

[RiverJeff]

Looking good keep the updates coming!

[RlsRls]

looks good. I have those in my freezer now. How much quicker would the cook take if I cut them individually, "blaspheny style" I'm not into 10 hour cooks especially in the winter! Has anyone done them that way?

[DaveD]

Sure, that gets done all the time. You'll save one heck of a lot of time, several hours I reckon - full disclosure, have not tried but have seen a number of vids on it. Go for it!

[DaveD]

Good morning! An absolutely beeeeeee-YOOOO-teee-full day here in northern Virginia, perfect smoking conditions. Had the ribs on the kettle by 8:15am and the grate temp stabilized at about 265F/130C after 45 min or so.

Dry brined overnight as above, then hit it with a very healthy coating of Henrik Hank's Bona Fide Beef rub, which I keep on hand using the rub recipes he so generously shared not long ago.



On the kettle running B&B charcoal and mesquite chunks. Stabilized with bottom vent fully closed, top at about 1/3, smoke hole at about 1/4, and the cover for the probe wires closed as much as the throughgoing wires will allow.



And here we are a little over an hour in, with ITs from 90-100F/32-38C. The probe inserted into the long side (on left in pics) is reading about 10F higher than the one in the end here at the outset - they'll doubtless converge later. Both temps read at the freezing point when they went on the kettle btw.



Already some gorgeous color working!!

Stay tuned...

[Henrik]

Bring the popcorn! Looking grand, I'll stay tuned for sure. Can't wait to see the final product!

[WayneT]

That should be a wonderful meal for your wife. What are you eating? 😉

Looking forward to seeing the final result.

[DaveD]

Howdy again folks, update time... everything remains Nominal AF. Kettle has been rock steady all day, and the ribs hit the stall at ITs of about 170F/77C about five hours in, right on target trajectory-wise. Just transferred them to the Pit Boss and launched the foil boat. Anticipating a couple more hours and then some rest time, very convenient for dinner tonight.

2.5 hours in, ITs about 135F/57C.

4.5 hrs, ITs ~163F/73C.

5.5 hrs, ITs ~168F/75C, everybody in the boat!

Continued gorgeous color on this rack!

And please be upstanding for the cleaning job I did on the Pit Boss...

[realdocBBQ]

Man that looks great, and that Pit Boss looks like it's danged near NEW! Way to go!
Waiting for final pics, and my taste test bite to be FedEx'd... I'm in Kingstown, Saint Vincent, right now, so you'd better get it in the mail quick, so it can get here before I hit the airport back to Miami tomorrow!

[ecowper]

Holy cow, now I can’t wait to cook the one I have in the freezer!

[DaveD]

Well alrighty then! Here's the after-action, and them ribs was STUPENDOUS. Indescribably (but I'll try anyway) juicy, beefy, tender, smoky, barky. Yet again, we're saying to each other, this might be the best thing I have ever eaten.

Not without adventure however! In the face of my confident swagger about maintaining set-it-and-forget-it temps by transferring from the kettle to the Pit Boss, I took that a little too literally, and promptly forgot to pour another bag of pellets into the hopper, despite totally noticing it when I fired it up... "Better add that other bag o'pellets, what's in here definitely won't last." Noticed the grate temps had cratered and had to scramble to restart the rig after adding the new pellets - lost about half an hour of heating time, which translated into about an hour-plus worth of slowdown in the overall cook. All's well that ends well, however...

Here's the dog's breakfast of a temp profile plot. You can see the big color change where I transferred to the Pit Boss in the foil boat with a setpoint of 250F/120C. Temps dropped at first, which has been typical for me after I boat a cut, but when they didn't start recovering I bumped up the set point to 275F/135C and that got things rolling again. I was in the basement rehearsing my set for Sunday's livestream and when I looked, I saw the bottom had dropped out of the cooker temps...! Duhhh lunkhead, you forgot the pellets! Ended up going to 300F/150C for the home stretch.


After a few hours in the boat:

Over the last 90 minutes, everything started probing like buttah one region at a time. Once it was like that everywhere, dropped the set point to 150F/65C and let it rest while the sides finished up. Then onto the counter for the last 15-20 to get cool enough to eat.



Once on the cutting board, I didn't even have to twist or tug to slip those bones right on out. Zero resistance. And they're clean as a whistle.


So I just sliced up that big hunka meat and served, with the sides of the legendary roasted potatoes from Jess Pryles and some steamed zucchini.





Aaaaaaaand Scene:




Seriously, this stuff pretty much left us speechless. Which is really saying something.

[Andrrr]

Hey, maybe you discovered a new technique via the pellet debacle… it’s like a mid-cook rest.

[DaveD]

Yeah... yeah, that's it! That's the ticket. I did it on purpose