Newbie Doing Ribs

[Shooter38]

Thanks to all of you who have shared your wisdom with me so far. I had no idea that there was so much that I didn't know. I have a lot to learn and the wealth of information here is amazing. I had never heard of a lot of the accessories that are available for my grills. I will definitely be adding the SNS and drip and griddle to my arsenal post haste!

[Skelly]

Thanks to all of you for the welcome! As for the meat temp, I thought that 145 is the target temp for pork. Is that not correct?

145 is the safe temp, but for butts you want ~203 (this is debatable within about a 5 degree range I think). With ribs, just use the bend test, noted in many places on this site, and I believe the reason is the bones in ribs make it difficult to get an accurate reading. Also, the bend test simply works, and it only works well past the safe temp...so it's kind of a no brainer IMO.

I don't have a Kettle, so I'll stop there, but I highly recommend the bend test.

[realdocBBQ]

Right, on ribs, you're not looking for a "meat temp" as it's difficult to get an accurate temp between bones and whatnot. Plus, I think with ribs, at 145, they'll likely be pretty tough. I have never measured meat temps on my ribs, so I am just guessing, but I think of ribs as a "tougher" cut that needs more low and slow and brought to a higher meat temp, like a butt/shoulder.

The bend test I find is inconsistent with ribs. I don't do a lot of St. Louis, but I know they generally take about 1.5+x longer than my babybacks, which is my primary choice. I am doing my babybacks on my pellet smoker for 4 hours these days, sometimes 5 if they seem to need it. Never less than 3, and if that, I raise the heat a little bit.

It really just takes trial and error to see how long they need to cook on your setup, with your specific racks of ribs. I am thinking, if you can keep a consistent 225-250 on that kettle, and you rotate 'em every couple hours, you're looking at likely 6-7 hours for those St. Louis. Using the method mentioned above where you look for the meat being pulled back from the edges of the bone about 1/2" seems pretty close to me. When in doubt.... since you've got 3 racks, go until they look about right, cut one off and try it. If the meat pulls off the bone with a gentle-to-moderate teeth tug, I'd say you're about right. If it is tough to pull off with your teeth, give 'em another hour or so.

You'll get there. This place is a gold mine, and you'll be amazed at how good you can get at this in NO TIME!

Oh, and welcome, from an Oklahoma pellethead!

[Shooter38]

Well, I did the ribs on my Weber kettle today. I only did two racks of them though. I also decided to do the charcoal snake as I had been advised. I made up a batch of Meathead's Memphis Dust rub which I applied prior to putting the ribs in the grill. I dry brined them yesterday with kosher salt. I used 8 lit coals at the head of the snake with 2 chunks of hickory. A disposable aluminum pan half full of water under the cooking grate. I brought the grill up to 225 degrees and got it to stabilize at that temp by adjusting the vents. Everything was looking good and the weather here in southeast Michigan was perfect for skeet shooting so I headed to the gun club for a few hours of breaking clays. When I arrived back home, much to my dismay, I discovered that the temp in the grill had climbed to 350 while I was gone. I lifted the lid and to my horror, it looked like I had incinerated the ribs. On closer inspection though, even though the bark was overdone, the meat underneath it looked great. I got lucky this time. I learned a valuable lesson with my first time smoking in my kettle grill- its not a set it and forget it thing like it is with my electric smoker. I should have stayed home and monitored the temp. Incidentally, Meathead's rub created a great bark even though I overcooked it. I'll definitely be using that rub a lot. We enjoyed eating the ribs in spite of the blackened bark. Thanks again to all of you that shared your advice with me.

[Willy]

"Stabilized" is a temporary condition. ;«)

[kmhfive]

Good work! And, you still have another rack to cook so you will continue to improve. You won't regret the SnS. I've been very impressed with mine - new this season.

[Amajeff99]

I had the same issue . I was Cooking them for way to short a time and to way to low a temp. I did some more rids today and cooked them for 5 hours to a temp of around 180 to 190 (which some one recommended on this site). They came out way better than when I cooked them to only 165.

[Shooter38]

Smoking in my Weber kettle grill was something that I had never given a thought before because I have an electric smoker and have always done my low & slow in that, but I like the idea of using charcoal whenever its feasible and after getting on this website and reading about others using the kettle for smoking successfully, I decided to give it a try. I'll probably still use the Masterbuilt for long smokes but for shorter ones like ribs, I'll keep experimenting with the kettle.

[realdocBBQ]

Yup, sounds like a little bit of a lesson learned. Glad they still turned out pretty good in the longrun, though!

I did three racks of baby backs yesterday on my pellet smoker, which really IS almost a set-and-forget kind of thing. That's why I love it! All I have to do is check every 2-3 hours to make sure my pellets are feeding correctly. I did my 3 racks at around 225ish for 4 1/2 hours and they were absolutely perfect! Just enough tender to pull off the bone easily, but not quite too tender to where they were falling apart and made it difficult to slice them. That's my window. Had yet another friend tell me they were some of the best ribs they'd ever eaten, just enough sweet and just enough heat and just the right amount of tenderness and bark and smoke. Makes ya feel pretty good to have people happy when you cook for 'em!

BTW, I've taken to a slightly amped-up personalized version of MMD where I make up a batch like the recipe says, then I add in some Tony Chachere's cajun seasoning, just to give it a little more kick. Tony's has some extra salt in it, but I'm only adding about a 1/3 mixture of the Tony's, so it doesn't get overpowering with the salt, after I've already done my kosher salt sprinkle. I'm still tweaking my recipe, but I'm getting closer to perfect - for us, anyways!

Just now put 2 chuck roasts on, 3# and 3 1/2#, gonna smoke 'em for about 3 hours or so, then pull 'em off to make a couple big batches of chili for this evening's church social chili cook-off/trivia contest. Last year it was a hit, with about 20 different types of chili, but I kept mine somewhat mild in light of the large spectrum of attendees. This year, I'm going to amp it up and do some 3-alarm, as there was plenty of mild stuff last year, but nothing really "adventurous" for those of us who like some heat! W00T!

[kmhfive]

Gotta come with the heat!

[Joetee]

I just did my first ever baby back ribs also. I highly recommend the SnS. A fabulous investment.
5 1/2 hrsI cooked them. They were real good I thought but my wife said they needed cooked more. So next time I'll either increase temp a bit or cook longer.

[djotaku]

I think the OP already cooked it, but I wanted to recommend spacing your ribs out like this:



When I do that rather than put one in each slot, it takes me the amount of time that Meathead recommends - ie babybacks take 3 hours and St Louis take 6 hrs.

[Joetee]

I took 2 racks and cut and slid them together.