Ever get ribs that just won't cook?

Sounds like you overcooked the fire out of them.. Baby backs take much less time than spares.. because they are a lot smaller and leaner.. these are dried out.. and tough.. from being dried out. Baby backs normally take no longer than 3 or 4 hours.. total cooking time..

"Dome Temps" If your dome temp is 250, the temp where it counts, at the grate could be a lot lower...

Have you ever gotten your cooker stable at 275-300 grate temp and tossed the ribs on for 3-4 hours till they pass the bend, poke or bone tug test? 7 hours is an awful long time for any type of pork rib. I vote pork jerky on that one.

El Ropo said:

"Dome Temps" If your dome temp is 250, the temp where it counts, at the grate could be a lot lower...

Have you ever gotten your cooker stable at 275-300 grate temp and tossed the ribs on for 3-4 hours till they pass the bend, poke or bone tug test? 7 hours is an awful long time for any type of pork rib. I vote pork jerky on that one.

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Agreed. I never foil ribs BB cook in 3-3.5 hrs 275-300.

I've never done BB ribs other than indirect heat for 3-3.5 hrs.
No foil here either.
Tender as can be every time

Dave

The only ones that ever came out that way for me were specifically due to a lack of moisture in the cooker. In general, ribs love moisture. If the cooker has really dry heat, this requires lots of mopping, spritzing, foiling, or whatever it takes. Not sure what the "platesetter" does (?) does it help with moisture? Another factor can be what else is in the cooker; if you have some big, fat, pumped up chickens in the same cooker, they will give up a lot of moisture, and the ribs will like that --- an identical cook (all other factors the same) without a bunch of other juicy meat in the cooker can drastically change the outcome of ribs. Like others said, I like to cook ribs at about 275, and I don't like to foil. But, whatever it takes, ribs have to stay moist. To take this point to the extreme (not recommending it), if you boiled ribs, they would never "dry out". They would be awful, but they couldn't possibly get dry and crunchy (ok -- assuming the water didn't all boil away). I would think that if you had your procedure nailed down, then it had to be something that reduced the amount of moisture.

CyberQue said:

I cooked the ribs for about two hours, then wrapped them with white wine for about 90 minutes.

When I unwrapped them the meat hadn't pulled back much. (Which was strange.) I did the pull test every 45 minutes or so after that and they never pulled gently apart. Had I overcooked them, the bones would have just come out clean, right? That never happened.

<scratching head>

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Yeah... Certainly, if you overcooked in the foil, the bones should have come out clean. Sounds like your temp was too low. So, even though you foiled, they had to stay on so long after the foil, that they dried out.

I don't know how much fuel you use (or can use) in the BGE, but if you're using briquettes, try some lump (it will burn hotter). "Not getting done" (won't bend good) is always from too low a temp, and drying out or crunchiness is always a lack of moisture. Good luck this weekend!

Lack of moisture and ribs is very had to do. Ribs make their own moisture as the collagen renders. Has nothing to do with moist or dry cooking environment. What most people think are dry or tough ribs are simply undercooked most of the time. But cooking at too low of a temp for too long can also cause a dehydration effect. Crank up the heat, leave the cooker closed and listen to the sizzling sound during the rendering phase. When that sound starts to get quiet, they are about done.

In my experience, more people have bad rib results trying 225 in combination with some form of foiling shenanigans than the people who just toss the ribs in a 275-300 F pit, close the cooker and let 'em cook.

I cook baby backs on a PBC generally at 275...no wrapping mopping or spritzing...and done in 3 hours. I cook them by themselves so one other food or water pan to add moisture. I agree with very low temp dehydrating the ribs.

Awrighten.

Seems like he has nailed several racks, and has had a couple of flyers.

To me, the first thing is to really review if you are doing the same thing each time, or if you made a small change. Even where you are buying the ribs might have an effect. There have been odd cooks for me, in all manner of meats. I can say, that with ribs, I have had a few that just did no behave as I would have liked.

Had a rack of competition ribs, that looked fine, felt fine, good straight bones, and as they cooked, they torqued up like a strand of DNA, useless in the end. Last year, I had three racks on a BGE, all at the same time, two were nailed at 6 hours, perfect. The last one, was smaller, and it never did bend right. So, it is possible to get a weird slab of ribs in my experience