Pit masters, I bought some beef plate ribs that were individually cut and I intend to smoke them on the OKJ Bronco this (cold) weekend. From what I understand, I should low-and-slow them like a brisket, up to probe- tender, ie 200+ F. All the recipes I have found involve whole racks of multiple ribs. What I have came already cut up between each rib bone. They were not cheap, and I don’t want to screw this up. I’m expecting this to go faster due to the smaller pieces of meat.
Does anyone have any sage advice, suggestions or guidance for me? I’d be very grateful.
My experience is there’s so much fat hard to screw up. I usually shoot for 203 plus on dino ribs. Would assume the same though that individually cut would go faster.
Hope this helps, Click on the link below, if you page down you will find the second video of a guy cooking them individually. Yes it is going to be cold this weekend.
I always cut my beef ribs into singles before cooking. Simple SPG rub and cook until tender but making sure the fat is fully rendered. I always do them as singles because it gives more surface area for bark, can cook a little faster, and each rib can be pulled only when it is ready.
When doing individual plate ribs I like to wrap them at about 185F internal temp. I get good bark and flavor with melt in your mouth tenderness and good moisture. As I’ve said here several times these are the best thing I know how it prepare, the best thing bbq has to offer.
Once again, the Pitmasters do not disappoint. Thank you all.
This is my first time cooking them, I’ve never been able to find short or plate ribs when shopping before.
Unless they’re a total embarrassment, I will post my results
You’ll do great. As others have said, treat like brisket. Wrap once your bark is nicely set. Since they are already sliced, everybody gets lots of bark #NOM
Well, that sucked. First, the butchers at Costco cut through the rib bones rather than alongside them. So the meat was basically meat separated by cross-sections of rib bone. Each slice was just under an inch deep.
I went outside this morning, ambient temperature, 0°F, and fired up the Bronco. There was a 20 mile an hour wind with gusts up to 30 so it was brisk. The sections of meat were so short and thin that my Thermopro Tempspike XR temperature probes could not be fully inserted as required In hardly any locations of the meat. I smoked at about 275F for several hours and wrapped in butcher paper at 165 when the bark looked set then back on the smoker until we hit 203 Fahrenheit on one of the probes. Some other areas of meat were still in the 20-30F lower though.
At that point, about five or six hours in, charcoal was nearly spent. I ran them in the oven at 225 for a while then held the meat for two hours before dinner and the results were… Disappointing. It had a good bark, but it was chewy in most sections and quite frankly the yield of meat was very low.
To tap it off, our dishwasher bought the farm, leaving us a crap ton of hand dishwashing to do from the past two days.
When I bought these plate ribs, you couldn’t tell from the packaging that the cut was transecting the rib bones themselves. I won’t buy these without making sure that’s not the case in the future.
Thank you for your help folks. I file this under the “live and learn, you win some you lose some” folder.
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Last edited by DrJimmy2112; January 19, 2026, 09:30 PM.
Well crap. Lessons learned. Never seen any ever cut that way. Maybe save for braising next time or grind them into burger if the price is right. I love a plate rib.
Yes Sweaty Paul lesson learned. Now that I’ve poked around at amazingribs.com I found some mentions of this cut. I didn’t know that these were called flanken ribs. Oh well. Any day spent barbecuing is a good day.
You aren’t the first to be fooled by flanken ribs. I was too. After my first attempt I now marinate with a Korean inspired mixture and quickly grill on my little Lodge Sportsman Grill.
Concur, it's always nice to get a chance to chill with a grill. Besides, even "not up to par" homemade bbq is almost always better than eating out.
Also, I did some braised short ribs from our last 1/2 American Wagyu. Because of the fat content on the animal I had to do something interesting trimming and braising, however, that was half the fun.
John "JR"
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Soak these in Kalbi sauce and then grill them over very high heat, flipping continuously. You will LOVE the results! It is so good. You live and you learn.
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