A Tale of 2 rib recipes - Sous Vide vs Low and Slow

[kerryt221]

I was wrestling with sous vide and finish smoked vs just low and slow smoked baby back ribs. So I did both.....

Dry brinded both versions with salt for 24hrs, rubbed with Memphis Dust.

Sous Vide for 24hrs and finished for 40 minutes at 225 with hickory pellets.

Low and slow at 225 and added a 1/4 full smoker pro (both with hickory pellets) for extra smoke for 2 hours for a total of 5.5 hours until it passed the crack test.

The first two pictures of cut ribs are the low and slow version. Great smoke ring, pull apart perfect. The last picture is the sous vide version. No smoke ring, pull apart perfect. I threw in a rib egg and feta cheese breakfast burrito picture for fun.

The sous vide version was good, perfectly cooked but lacked flavor punch.

Low and slow version was frigging amazing. Perfectly cooked and flavor out the wazoo. Wife gave it the best ribs ever award. Couldn't stop eating them.

Winner: Low and slow by a mile.

[DWCowles]

Just another reason I prefer live fire bbq. Thanks for the confirmation.

[ComfortablyNumb]

I'm new to SV, but my understanding is if you want to smoke it you need to chill it down after the bath. Then it spends more time in the smoker getting up to temp, thus more exposure and more smoke flavour. Any experts feel free to correct.

[kerryt221]

Sorry I forgot that I did an ice/water bath for 30 minutes "AFTER" the Sous Vide bath.

[ComfortablyNumb]

kerryt221 I meant chilling after the SV bath, before the smoker.

[Polarbear777]

I like double smoke. Smoke first then SV then chill then smoke again. Yes it is a pain but comes out great.

but since ribs don’t take long, trad is the way to go.

[Troutman]

Yup, that's the winner SVQing wise

[EdF]

I'm coming to that conclusion myself. Maybe not for pork ribs, but for bigger stuff.

[Polarbear777]

Yeah for QVQ it takes about the same amount of effort and time to fire up twice than it does to just cook them outright. Big advantage on bigger thicker cuts where you need time under temp to break down collagen without cooking so long they dry out. Not much advantage for ribs since they are quicker.

[EdF]

I've said it on other threads - I just don't see an advantage to SV-ing pork ribs. Beef ribs are a completely 'nother story. I've had a SV machine at least 7 years, probably more.

[Troutman]

Yea I did a rib comparison some months back and came to the same conclusion. I simply love slow smoked flavor on ribs. The meat is so receptive to it being as thin as it is that you just can't re-create that SVQing it. I think your conclusion is well founded. Nice comparison cook, thanks for sharing !!

[shify]

For the super bowl I intended to compare St. Louis ribs SVQ to a smoke only but the weather didn’t cooperate so I SV and then smoked on the whole batch. I still love the results that way but really want to do a side by side.

[6th Borough BBQ]

Great comparison! Thank you!

[Frozen Smoke]

What were the low and slow ribs doing for the 24 hours while the others were in the bath? Everything looks great including that tasty looking burrito! 48+ hours into a rack of ribs is a long time especially if you didn't like the end result.
Thanks for taking the time and posting the results!

[kerryt221]

We had the low and slow the first night and the sv the second.

[BourBonQ]

kerryt221 What was bath temp?

[kerryt221]

150