OK, that's a pretty trite play on words in the Topic, but there you go. 
Last week I went to the local Wild Fork store that's a candy store for sure. Among other things, I got a rack of Baby Back ribs that nominally were for my wife (she does not like smoked foods, but likes BBs, especially those from P.F. Chang's). For me, I got a rack of St. Louis spares, intending to do them using the boat method Donw posted, and HotSun also recently used.
For the BB's I decided to use a char sui recipe from Seriouseats.com. A lot of prep, and what I consider a near total fail. I would not recommend their recipe for char sui - rather tasteless and unappealing. Here is a pic of these that are marinated overnight and then oven roasted. Ugh.
Now, for the spares. These turned out pretty good. For the prep, I rubbed with Big Poppa's Money Rub and then Honey BBQ. Got the MAK running at 250* - well, the setpoint was 240*, but I used the upper rack which typically runs 10*-20* hotter than the main grate level. As measured by my Fireboard on the upper rack, it held 250* very well, until I bumped the temp at the end.
Here is the prep:
My plan was to cook these for 5 hours - some videos show 4 hours, some 6, so I did the Solomon thing and picked 5. Well, it should have been 6, I'll explain further on here. Placed the ribs on the upper rack naked, and cooked them that way for 2.5 hours. Then made a foil boat with some butter and brown sugar, placing the ribs bone side down on that and curling up the sides.
Now the plan was to start basting with sauce at 4 hours for an hour to get to the 5 hour total cook time. However, temping the ribs with my TW One probe, they were sitting at 160* IT at 4 hours. I bumped the MAK to 270* and started basting. Pulled at 5 hours and the IT was between 180*-190*.
The ribs turned out to be very, very good from a flavor, texture, and moisture standpoint. A nice compromise between fall-off-the-bone and firm tug to the bit. The bark was Meh, and the glaze was OK - but the flavor was just fine!
Sorry for the crappy pics, I'm just not in some youse folks league for photos. I definitely plan to use this method again, adjusting for lessons learned. I highly recommend trying Das Boot!!
Last week I went to the local Wild Fork store that's a candy store for sure. Among other things, I got a rack of Baby Back ribs that nominally were for my wife (she does not like smoked foods, but likes BBs, especially those from P.F. Chang's). For me, I got a rack of St. Louis spares, intending to do them using the boat method Donw posted, and HotSun also recently used.
For the BB's I decided to use a char sui recipe from Seriouseats.com. A lot of prep, and what I consider a near total fail. I would not recommend their recipe for char sui - rather tasteless and unappealing. Here is a pic of these that are marinated overnight and then oven roasted. Ugh.
Now, for the spares. These turned out pretty good. For the prep, I rubbed with Big Poppa's Money Rub and then Honey BBQ. Got the MAK running at 250* - well, the setpoint was 240*, but I used the upper rack which typically runs 10*-20* hotter than the main grate level. As measured by my Fireboard on the upper rack, it held 250* very well, until I bumped the temp at the end.
Here is the prep:
My plan was to cook these for 5 hours - some videos show 4 hours, some 6, so I did the Solomon thing and picked 5. Well, it should have been 6, I'll explain further on here. Placed the ribs on the upper rack naked, and cooked them that way for 2.5 hours. Then made a foil boat with some butter and brown sugar, placing the ribs bone side down on that and curling up the sides.
Now the plan was to start basting with sauce at 4 hours for an hour to get to the 5 hour total cook time. However, temping the ribs with my TW One probe, they were sitting at 160* IT at 4 hours. I bumped the MAK to 270* and started basting. Pulled at 5 hours and the IT was between 180*-190*.
The ribs turned out to be very, very good from a flavor, texture, and moisture standpoint. A nice compromise between fall-off-the-bone and firm tug to the bit. The bark was Meh, and the glaze was OK - but the flavor was just fine!
Sorry for the crappy pics, I'm just not in some youse folks league for photos. I definitely plan to use this method again, adjusting for lessons learned. I highly recommend trying Das Boot!!
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