Pictures from my first try at "Last Meal Ribs"

[Huskee]

Mosca brings up a good point. If your family/guests are expecting "fall apart" ribs as is popular with some, foiling will get you there.

[Mosca]

Yeah, let 'em go longer. And, we all try for 225*, but the recommendation is 225-250*.

A popular rib recipe is 3-2-1: 3 hours bare, 2 hours wrapped in foil, and the last hour bare again. 3-2-1 for regular and St Louis racks, 2-2-1 for baby backs. You might want to give that a try.

[Medusa]

Pretty good to have the gasser downto 240!!! I'd follow anything Huskee has to say!

Good Job!

--Ed

[Huskee]

No, you didn't overcook. 240 is a beautiful temp, never fear! I cook more in the 235-240 myself. Sounds like they needed another 30-60 minsm minimum. When they juuuust start to crack, they're not ready in most cases, but close. You want a good solid crack. Not quite break in half, but a good crack. It is not uncommon for thicker 3lb racks to take in the neighborhood of 6-7 hrs. I did some big ones a couple days ago that took 9-10.

Keep up the good work. You can read all the directions you want but it still takes practice to get the feel of it on your own equipment. You're off to a great start!

[CinciJeff]

Well I just joined "the club" and figured I'd utilize the forum to help improve my next batch of ribs. I'll try to lay this out as logically as possible.

Background
I attempted to follow the "Last Meal Ribs" recipe from this site. Started with 6 lbs. of ribs from Costco. Removed the membrane and trimmed off the majority of remaining fat. I was short on time so applied my rub (see photos) about 30 minutes prior to cooking. The rub had a lot of salt so I didn't do a separate dry brine.
My grill is a Weber Genesis 330. From my previous efforts I knew I'd have a hard time getting down to 225 but I did the best I could with the "Sear Station" burner set on low. I added 4 oz. of Mesquite chips to my smoker box, threw on the ribs and started watching the thermometer (a Maverick dual remote - based on the reco. here)

Cooking
I struggled to keep the temp low, and ended up propping open the grill cover a bit to help. Throughout the cook I averaged about 240 degrees.

At 2-hrs in I decided to switch slabs on the grill (see photos). At this point I also realized that I didn't lightly coat the ribs with vegetable oil prior to adding the rub. The recipe said this would help with the bark, so at this point I brushed on some oil and shook on a little more rub. I also added the rest of the wood chips at this point for additional smoke.

At 5-hrs in I picked up a slab with my tongs and didn't see any cracking, so I left them on for another 30 minutes.

At 5.5 hrs. I tried the bend test again and saw cracks so at that point I cranked up the heat in preparation for the sauce.

Finishing
I used Sweet Baby Rays sauce and brushed it on the ribs with a silicone brush. I think the grill was still coming up to temperature because I didn't see any sizzling until about 5 minutes later. Finally I could see some nice caramelization so I watched carefully and took them off when it looked good. (see attached photos)

Results
I was excited because the ribs looked good, and they seemed to be quite juicy. A first quick taste as we were cutting them told me that either I had used too much rub or that particular rub (which I had never used before) was a lot spicier than advertised! I'm leaning toward "too much rub".

I cut sections of 3 or 4 ribs for each family member and as I did so I noticed they didn't seem terribly tender. As you can see from the photo, they weren't at all pink and also didn't have a "smoke ring". Finally I was able to taste them and while pretty flavorful (if not quite spicy!) they were a bit disappointing in terms of tenderness. After a day of cooking my wife was expecting "fall off the bone" tender (yes, I've read the opinions on that subject here on the website ) and I was expecting a little firm, but these were "quite firm" (not tough...). They were certainly edible but the spiciness and the "less than tenderness" aspects took some of the luster off of the afternoon's efforts.

Thoughts
I've gone through the various deviations from the recipe, and my best guess is that I overcooked them. The temp range was about 230-248 during the entire cook, so that would make sense. If this was the case then where I failed was in the "checking for done" department. Hopefully with more experience this will become more obvious to me.

So this was my amateur opinion. What do you all think? Any suggestions for better results next time? I think there is a pellet smoker in my future, but in the near term I'd like to learn as much as I can with my gas grill.

Thanks for reading all of this... I appreciate any/all thoughts, comments, suggestions and critiques.

-CinciJeff