Hello All –
First post on the site, so bear with me. I’ve been BBQ’ing for more years than I care to remember, but after finding this site a year ago and wanting to get into smoking, I took the plunge this spring and purchased my Camp Chef DLX pellet smoker based on Meathead’s gold star recommendation – LOVE it. I've had great success (for a beginner) with pork ribs, sausage, and whole chicken, and even did pretty good with my first brisket. But I have never tried beef ribs, and last week I was in our local King Soopers (Kroger) and saw a single rack of center cut beef back ribs and decided to use them to learn on. They were definitely not as meaty as short ribs, but good enough for this.
Did not find out (from the wife) that I was cooking them until the morning of the cook, so only got to salt them (1/2 tsp/LB) for 3 hours, than one additional hour with a commercial beef rub I had on hand (and yes it had salt, more about that at the end). Before salting I removed most of the membrane from the underside and very glad I did, as the one rib where I didn't get all the membrane off – that membrane was hard as shoe leather after the cook.

First picture is how they looked coming out of the refrigerator before going on the smoker. Smoker was set to “high smoke†which keeps the Camp Chef at is 225 degrees throughout the cook. Gave the smoker 25 minutes to come up to temp and stabilize before this picture was taken, using apple wood pellets for this cook.

Second picture just before going on the Camp Chef, very sunny day as you can see. Also, very dry day here in Denver (20% humidity) which probably contributed to the length of time to cook.

Third picture is the ribs on the smoker at the start, with Camp chef probe in meat, and my extra oven temp probe (I can speak about that when I do a write up on the smoker itself), with the built in Camp Chef oven probe at the far left. Put the ribs on rib side down, and never moved them. Spritzed them every so often with apple juice throughout the cook. After 5 hours the internal temp was only at 190 degrees. The natives (read wife) were getting restless, so at this point I cranked it up to 300 degrees, and after 20 more minutes the ribs reached 200 so I took them off.

Fourth picture ribs on side of smoker just after being removed.

Fifth picture on cutting board after cutting first two ribs.

Last picture, close up, not bad smoke ring for first try!
Results: Ribs where incredibly tender and flavorful, with a great beef taste. Part of the great flavor I’m sure was the slight over salting due to using both a salt rub and a commercial rub with salt, although the rub (Bubba’s Bar B Q Beef Rub) did give it a great flavor on the outside, with just a note of sweat and a note of heat, which we both liked. Next time will definitely have to use a salt free spice rub (probably one of MeatHead's from the site) to go with the pre-salting of the meat. Overall there was actually a decent amount of meat considering they were close trimmed back ribs, and there was just enough from the one rack for the wife and I (with no leftovers).
Bottom line, while I am still a pork rib lover, the beef ribs were absolutely great, and I will definitely be cooking them again in the near future! Thanks to MeatHead, Dr B., and the entire crew for your inspiration and great help and wealth of knowledge on the site that go me to this point!!
Keep smoking!
Jeff
First post on the site, so bear with me. I’ve been BBQ’ing for more years than I care to remember, but after finding this site a year ago and wanting to get into smoking, I took the plunge this spring and purchased my Camp Chef DLX pellet smoker based on Meathead’s gold star recommendation – LOVE it. I've had great success (for a beginner) with pork ribs, sausage, and whole chicken, and even did pretty good with my first brisket. But I have never tried beef ribs, and last week I was in our local King Soopers (Kroger) and saw a single rack of center cut beef back ribs and decided to use them to learn on. They were definitely not as meaty as short ribs, but good enough for this.
Did not find out (from the wife) that I was cooking them until the morning of the cook, so only got to salt them (1/2 tsp/LB) for 3 hours, than one additional hour with a commercial beef rub I had on hand (and yes it had salt, more about that at the end). Before salting I removed most of the membrane from the underside and very glad I did, as the one rib where I didn't get all the membrane off – that membrane was hard as shoe leather after the cook.
First picture is how they looked coming out of the refrigerator before going on the smoker. Smoker was set to “high smoke†which keeps the Camp Chef at is 225 degrees throughout the cook. Gave the smoker 25 minutes to come up to temp and stabilize before this picture was taken, using apple wood pellets for this cook.
Second picture just before going on the Camp Chef, very sunny day as you can see. Also, very dry day here in Denver (20% humidity) which probably contributed to the length of time to cook.
Third picture is the ribs on the smoker at the start, with Camp chef probe in meat, and my extra oven temp probe (I can speak about that when I do a write up on the smoker itself), with the built in Camp Chef oven probe at the far left. Put the ribs on rib side down, and never moved them. Spritzed them every so often with apple juice throughout the cook. After 5 hours the internal temp was only at 190 degrees. The natives (read wife) were getting restless, so at this point I cranked it up to 300 degrees, and after 20 more minutes the ribs reached 200 so I took them off.
Fourth picture ribs on side of smoker just after being removed.
Fifth picture on cutting board after cutting first two ribs.
Last picture, close up, not bad smoke ring for first try!
Results: Ribs where incredibly tender and flavorful, with a great beef taste. Part of the great flavor I’m sure was the slight over salting due to using both a salt rub and a commercial rub with salt, although the rub (Bubba’s Bar B Q Beef Rub) did give it a great flavor on the outside, with just a note of sweat and a note of heat, which we both liked. Next time will definitely have to use a salt free spice rub (probably one of MeatHead's from the site) to go with the pre-salting of the meat. Overall there was actually a decent amount of meat considering they were close trimmed back ribs, and there was just enough from the one rack for the wife and I (with no leftovers).
Bottom line, while I am still a pork rib lover, the beef ribs were absolutely great, and I will definitely be cooking them again in the near future! Thanks to MeatHead, Dr B., and the entire crew for your inspiration and great help and wealth of knowledge on the site that go me to this point!!
Keep smoking!
Jeff
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