Keep in mind cooking at 211°/225° leaves meat in the danger zone for too long (for me anyway.) Bad things can happen to food from 40° to 140°, cooking at higher temp will push the meat through that zone quicker.
What did I do wrong smoking ribs?
- Thread starter rajung
- Start date
borjis
LifeTime Supporter
I'll run it at 275F and report back my results.
The Daniel Boone smoker is known to be a bit cooler on the right side, so I will switch around
the rib rack every 1.5 hours and do the bend test after the first 3 hours. If it doesn't bend,
then I'll repeat that every 30 minutes, til they pass the SLAM....er bend test. lol
My girlfriend has made babybacks many times using the oven and we're going to have
a contest to see how they compare.
I cook the 3-2-1 method using my Cook Shack electric 009 all the time. Once your smoker is seasoned I only use a small handfull of wood chips in the beginning and never open the door until it needs to be foiled. Might want to smoke a couple of pork buts/shoulders to get your smoker seasoned (want to keep the inside the nice black color). I actually cook my ribs at 235deg with a rib rack in an aluminum throw away pan and foil over the top at three hours. Less clean up 
Where is digital temp located? If it’s on door it may not be accurate. I have. Master built propane smoker , door reads 225-250 but I put oveN thermoter in it and it was reading 165-175. I read most thermometers that come with smokers aren,t accurate. It seems like 300 on door. Is a perfect 225.
Esloser
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rumpunch
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If I were guessing, I'd say the straight apple juice was your problem. By sealing them in foil with plain juice you essentially steamed them-- removing all the great smoke flavor you'd just spent the last 3 hours creating. Like all BBQ, the more you cook ribs the more you'll get a feel for it. I probably cook well over a hundred racks per year-- we give them out as gifts to family and friends.
I have a BBQ team (Smoke Check BBQ) and compete in some small, regional competitions in the Northeast Missouri area. I prefer St. Louis cut spares for competitions, but I'll occasionally smoke baby backs at home. Either way, I usually use the same method at home as I do for competitions (unless my wife wants "Memphis style," unsauced ribs). I either use a Weber Smoky Mountain or my competition smoker (an insulated cabinet smoker made by Spicewine Iron Works) depending on how many racks I'm cooking. I try to keep my temp around 250 or so, but I don't worry too much as long as it's over 220 degrees. I use a commercial rub-- usually Oakridge BBQ Secret Weapon or Three Little Pigs Championship, but I experiment with different rubs at home.
I've found the 3-2-1 method leaves the ribs too done, so I use a modified 3-1-1 method; approximately 3 hours on the smoke, 1 hour wrapped in foil and 1 hour back on the smoke to set the glaze/sauce. When I wrap in foil I first lay down a line of squeeze butter, cover it with some brown sugar and a thinned-down "sauce" made up of original Sweet Baby Rays a little Blues Hog sauce, and cut with apple juice to get the loose consistency I'm looking for.
Don't give up on smoking. Give it a couple more tries and I'll bet you never go back to cooking ribs in an oven.
I have a BBQ team (Smoke Check BBQ) and compete in some small, regional competitions in the Northeast Missouri area. I prefer St. Louis cut spares for competitions, but I'll occasionally smoke baby backs at home. Either way, I usually use the same method at home as I do for competitions (unless my wife wants "Memphis style," unsauced ribs). I either use a Weber Smoky Mountain or my competition smoker (an insulated cabinet smoker made by Spicewine Iron Works) depending on how many racks I'm cooking. I try to keep my temp around 250 or so, but I don't worry too much as long as it's over 220 degrees. I use a commercial rub-- usually Oakridge BBQ Secret Weapon or Three Little Pigs Championship, but I experiment with different rubs at home.
I've found the 3-2-1 method leaves the ribs too done, so I use a modified 3-1-1 method; approximately 3 hours on the smoke, 1 hour wrapped in foil and 1 hour back on the smoke to set the glaze/sauce. When I wrap in foil I first lay down a line of squeeze butter, cover it with some brown sugar and a thinned-down "sauce" made up of original Sweet Baby Rays a little Blues Hog sauce, and cut with apple juice to get the loose consistency I'm looking for.
Don't give up on smoking. Give it a couple more tries and I'll bet you never go back to cooking ribs in an oven.
borjis
LifeTime Supporter
5 hours at 260 degrees ended up being the cook time and smoke temp til they were done.
turned out great!
turned out great!
Thanks for the tips, next time I will make 2 racks, not 8 using some of the above suggestions. And will leave out the apple juice idea.
I think I already made one mistake during cleaning. I cleaned the whole inside including the glass on door with 50/50 apple cider and water to look almost new again, took a long time and most likely removed any seasoning to the smoker. I guess it's one of those things, doing more might be better, but actually makes it worse
I think I already made one mistake during cleaning. I cleaned the whole inside including the glass on door with 50/50 apple cider and water to look almost new again, took a long time and most likely removed any seasoning to the smoker. I guess it's one of those things, doing more might be better, but actually makes it worse
Well, I attempted again.
Let me start off by saying the unit I have is a 40 inch Smoke Hollow, incase anyone else has one for reference or further suggestions.
I scaled back from the amount of ribs, down to a single rack.
Instead of baby back, I purchased spare rib, about 6 lbs by label. info.
Did some research on Google machine and decided to trim down to a St Louis style rack, suppose I should have just bought one to start with, threw a lot of meat away after trimming., had no use for it, and did not really try and figure out how to use it, enough challenge with just the ribs, taking last time into account.
I placed a stove thermometer into smoker to compare temp .
After pre heating smoker, temp set to 250 ( on door digital gauge ) , the oven gauge showed 200.
Cranked up setting to 290 deg, which is the highest the smoker goes to.
throughout cooking oven gauge showed 250 deg. and door temp gauge showed 285 -290.
Put a rub over ribs last night and refrigerated.
I cooked for 3 hours at max temp setting, removed and added the mix as a previous post had, with a strip of butter, some apple juice, sweet baby ray BBQ and brown suger wrapped in foil and cooked for 2 hrs.
Removed foil and cooked for 1 hour.
This whole process, I told myself , pay no attention to the smoker readings and just go by time, already planning on throwing straight to the trash, since smoker electronic readings were so far off.
Well, I must say they turned out great.
Maybe not what some might like, but I had to be careful removing from smoker so as not to fall apart.
I guess the other issue I had last time was that I was most likely cooking at a low temp, such as around 175 instead of 225 like gauge showed
Let me start off by saying the unit I have is a 40 inch Smoke Hollow, incase anyone else has one for reference or further suggestions.
I scaled back from the amount of ribs, down to a single rack.
Instead of baby back, I purchased spare rib, about 6 lbs by label. info.
Did some research on Google machine and decided to trim down to a St Louis style rack, suppose I should have just bought one to start with, threw a lot of meat away after trimming., had no use for it, and did not really try and figure out how to use it, enough challenge with just the ribs, taking last time into account.
I placed a stove thermometer into smoker to compare temp .
After pre heating smoker, temp set to 250 ( on door digital gauge ) , the oven gauge showed 200.
Cranked up setting to 290 deg, which is the highest the smoker goes to.
throughout cooking oven gauge showed 250 deg. and door temp gauge showed 285 -290.
Put a rub over ribs last night and refrigerated.
I cooked for 3 hours at max temp setting, removed and added the mix as a previous post had, with a strip of butter, some apple juice, sweet baby ray BBQ and brown suger wrapped in foil and cooked for 2 hrs.
Removed foil and cooked for 1 hour.
This whole process, I told myself , pay no attention to the smoker readings and just go by time, already planning on throwing straight to the trash, since smoker electronic readings were so far off.
Well, I must say they turned out great.
Maybe not what some might like, but I had to be careful removing from smoker so as not to fall apart.
I guess the other issue I had last time was that I was most likely cooking at a low temp, such as around 175 instead of 225 like gauge showed
- Apr 23, 2017
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Congrats on your cook! The more you do it the better you will get and the more you will learn your grill/smoker!
JohnT - this is the traditional 3-2-1 method which is a very popular method for cooking ribs on a pellet smoker (not sure about electric but the temp matches).
Rajung - if the meat didn't pull back from the bone or if the ribs were tough, next time, cook longer on the 1hr prior to saucing or keep it wrapped for another 30mins. If I had to guess, you had a leak in the wrap and it never really got a chance to steam the ribs. Your method seems right. 3-2-1 Ribs Recipe | Traeger Wood Fired Grills
Rajung - if the meat didn't pull back from the bone or if the ribs were tough, next time, cook longer on the 1hr prior to saucing or keep it wrapped for another 30mins. If I had to guess, you had a leak in the wrap and it never really got a chance to steam the ribs. Your method seems right. 3-2-1 Ribs Recipe | Traeger Wood Fired Grills
Never had problems with the 3-2-1 method on my Traeger. Only problem is that I need a bigger one
Glad your second attempt turned out better. I would politely suggest you purchase a Maverick 2 probe thermometer with the wireless temp display. This allows you to kick back, throw on some football or some tunes and have a few beverages while monitoring your temp with a just a glance at the wireless display. For ribs, you wont need to use the meat probe, you can just place the temp probe at the same levelas your ribs and you will know exactly what your cooking temp is. The food temp probe will be welcome when you start cooking pork butts and briskets. As others have mentioned, the BRITU recipe is fairly easy to follow and is my ¨go to¨ rib recipe. I like that it ¨does not¨ require foiling. When my ribs are done cooking, I will foil them and place in a cooler and they will hold this way for hours if need be. This is when I prep the side dishes, etc.
Have fun with it....after a few more smokes you will ¨learn¨ how your smoker cooks and this will give you better results.
Greg
Have fun with it....after a few more smokes you will ¨learn¨ how your smoker cooks and this will give you better results.
Greg
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