Out with the Old and In with the New. First New Smoker meal - Short Ribs !!! on Oklahoma Joe Bronco.

[dlaslo]

I had too many grills and smokers. The solution was to keep the Weber Gas Grill, sell the Weber charcoal kettle grill and the Camp Chef pellet smoker and replace them with an Oklahoma Joe Bronco - which can smoke and grill (but not at the same time) and the small footprint will free up real estate in our Lanai. The Oklahoma Joe was a platinum choice by Meathead.

I found the Oklahoma Joe marked down to $150 at a Walmart over an hour away and it turned out to be fake news. When I got there they didn't have any although it was still showing as available on the web.

Bummer - I ended up finding one at a Walmart close to home for $249.

I wandered into a local butcher shop for the first time and saw they had hardly anything to BBQ. But they did have some good looking beef ribs. Short ribs about 1.5 in thick. Sold!! Got a 4 rib rack -- about 2.5 lbs - for my wife and I.

Then I realized I no longer had the Camp Chef smoker dual temperature probes for grill and food. So back to the AmazingRibs equipment reviews for thermometers. I had settled on the ThermoWorks "Smoke" but the on-line purchase would take too long. So I rummage around locally and found that there were slim pickin's out there. The high end places - William Sonoma and my local Grill only store didn't have anything!! Then I found the Weber iGrill 2 probe at Lowe's discounted 50%. I didn't like that they were Bluetooth (after reading Meathead's diss on all things Bluetooth) but they were a Gold medal and I grabbed them.

In the past, I had a Weber Smokey Mountain smoker and preferred the results of cooking in it versus my Camp Chef pellet. I never quite got those really good results with pellets. B plus but never A. The convenience of the pellet grill, however, made it the go-to smoker. But when we moved to a different state, I forgot the Weber smoker - which was behind the shed and didn't get a ride in the moving van.

My first smoke in the Bronco was going to be something I never attempted in any smoker - beef ribs. So off I went to the Amazingribs site once again for recipe and technique. I dry brine the ribs for 24 hours and sprinkled them with Big Bad Beef Rub and got the smoker going.

And Meathead was right about the Bluetooth. I got good results with my iPhone iGrill APP until I went around a corner of the house and even though I was only about 5 yds away, I lost the connection. Only thing in it's way was a screen door and the corner of the house. The master bedroom is on the other side of the wall from the smoker and I can look out the window and see the iGrill. But even that close was problematic. Reception would come and go.

So, I took a different route. I paired the Weber iGrill APP on an old iPad and left it on a nearby table outside near the smoker and always had Bluetooth reception after that.

I set up the iGrill2 for food and grill temperature monitoring and was surprised to see the Bronco thermometer was off by over 25 degrees compared to the iGrill. So I controlled temperature to the iGrill.

The time estimate in the recipe to reach 203 degrees was about 7 hours and that is how long it took. I only opened the lid twice and never moved the ribs -- At the end I checked the meat temperature with a handheld Thermoworks and there was a gradient from 205F on one side of the ribs to 200 on the other. The thickness of the meat looked the same so it must be the variations in the grill. I think I'll buy another probe and monitor grill temperature in two places next time as well as move the ribs around during cooking.

I am really, really sorry I didn't video or photograph this. The final ribs were beautiful with a bark that was a dual temptation. One temptation said "EAT NOW!, and the other was "I'm TOO BEAUTIFUL TO EAT - LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

But the trials and tribulations were worth it. This was the best tasting BBQ meat I have had. Period. Better than brisket. Better than pork ribs. Better than sausage. Better than poultry. FIVE STARS

[Oakgrovebacon]

It sounds like you hit a home run on the first cook on a new smoker! You probably can’t wait to cook in it again.

[Dewesq55]

Without pics it didn't happen! You'll just have to do it again!

[RonB]

+ 1

[treesmacker]

+ 1 more

[randy56]

+2

[fzxdoc]

Sounds like your OJBronco is a winner. Enjoy cooking on it.

Kathryn

[jfmorris]

dlaslo Great news on the Bronco, and glad your first cook with it came out so well!

I can certainly sympathize with the too many cookers issue. Right now I’m storing grills for each of my 3 kids and their spouses (2 are in apartments that don’t allow grills, the other gets married in May), plus 3 more cookers for myself. It’s a big jumble of grills to navigate at the end of the house right now! Thankfully they all have wheels as I am having to shuffle them around a lot.

I’ve got a Thermoworks Smoke, and really like it, but if you decide to get something that isn’t Bluetooth I recommend the Maverick XR-50, as it has better range than the Smoke. I found that more than 2 walls between me and the smoker blocks the signal from the Smoke.

[PaulstheRibList]

So much cooker action! Picture??

[jfmorris]

PaulstheRibList I posted a picture when I just had a line of 5 cookers, now that the 6th one is there, I'll have to snap another pic. I'll be out in the yard winterizing hoses and sprinklers and what not before it hits 25 tonight (and 20 tomorrow), so will try and remember.

Right now I have several of the cookers turned end to the house, back to back, and just have to roll them out in front and turn lengthwise to use...

[texastweeter]

That epiphany moment when someone tries beef ribs, lol. Gets me every time. Congrats on the cook. Go get you a Maverick XR, and you will be set.

[RonB]

Congrats. Short ribs are my favorite.

[Bobmcgahan]

What kind of charcoal/fuel did you use?

[dlaslo]

Kingford charcoal and hickory lumps

[tbob4]

Great information. It looks like quite a few people on the site are buying the cooker. What was the outside temp during the cook, what fuel did you use and how much was left at the end? Only asking because you do a great job describing your experience and I am guessing the other Oklahoma Joe owners are reading the post are taking notes.

[dlaslo]

There was about 1/4 of the briquettes left but I started with maybe 80% full. SO 7.5 hours.....about right.

Outside temp was in th low 80s and fuel - see post above

[Troutman]

Great story but lacking pictures. Show us your wears !!!

[mountainsmoker]

Thanks for the write up. I feel strongly that the Bronco is a better smoker than the PBC. The vent system alone is better, as well as the bars that hold the meat which don't extend outside the barrel. It also handles grilling better.

[Nate]

Weird... nobody was talking about a PBC yet you turned it into a post about your continually overstated opinion about the PBC. It is kind of like a passive aggressive way to keep poking people in the pit.