The day is over. Ribs have been eaten. Was I satisfied? Meh! Let's say it was a first time with out of control circomstances.
I started out this morning with a nice rack of spares
Fought with the ghost membrane for a good 20 minutes before realizing that the butcher had already removed it. And then put on some of BlueHowler's Pork Dry Rub on it.
This is the setup I used before putting 10 pieces of lit lump on top. (Which was way too much) Basques Maple Sugar lump with one chunk of cherry.
After putting the lit coals, the temperature increased slowly as I expected it would. Around 250F, I thought I should wait a bit to get rid of the white smoke before putting my meat on. That's when it got nasty. The temps just kept rising no matter what I did so after about 1/2 hour, I got tired and closed both vent. After a light lunch and some reading here, I added a water pan which I had forgotten and managed to eventually get a reasonable temp. The first half hour was done around 280F and the rest around 250-265. I had to pretty much close the bottom vents and half the time close the top vent by half.
Here they are at the 3 hours mark:
Of course it had to start raining so everything went under the balcony. Note the thermometer on the hose holder.
After 6 1/2 hours in the smoke (it was around 7h15pm by now) the little ones were getting hungrier and hungrier. Even after the plain spaghetti I had managed to cook so they could wait a bit. So after doing the bend test (not bending enough) and the probe test (like butter that's been out of the fridge for only 15 minutes) I decided "Fark that! My sons are hungry, the little one is especially cranky and I've been watching temps and playing with the ketlle vents every 15 minutes for the whole afternoon. Let's eat!"
Mmmmmm... blurry ribs....
As could be expected, the taste was great but they were still chewy and a bit on the dry side. Better luck next time I guess.
