I finally got to cook my first plague ribs. I had 2 racks of baby backs since those are the only ribs I could find. I'm at my vacation home for the weekend so I got to cook them on my new (last fall) Masterbuilt Thermotemp XL. I had the cooker set to 250°F and had my Fireboard ambient probe set in the middle of the cabinet as a double check. Below I am posting a screen shot of the Fireboard session to show how perfectly the Thermotemp XL performed. The ribs were dry brined with an SPG rub and rubbed with Memphis Dust overnight and hung in the cooker using PBC hooks. I checked them after about 4½ hours and they were disastrously overcooked. I'm actually surprised they didn't fall apart on the hooks. The IT probed about 208°F on my Thermapen YIKES! Most of the meat was very dry, although there were some areas between the bones which had a good amount of fat so they were sort of edible. They couldn't really be cut into individual bones without disintegrating. Below is a pic from when they came off and they look decent, but looks can be deceiving. I blame my neglecting to place a Fireboard meat probe in one of the racks to give me some idea of when to check for doneness. I always do that, even with ribs, but got lazy today.
Here is the Fireboard session. The first spike is from when I pre-heated to 350°F to get the hickory chunks smoking. Then I put the ribs in and dropped the temp to a scoche over 250° and left it.
Here is the Fireboard session. The first spike is from when I pre-heated to 350°F to get the hickory chunks smoking. Then I put the ribs in and dropped the temp to a scoche over 250° and left it.
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