Smoking ribs on a Weber Gas grill - didn't turn out!!

Another vote for undercooked. When the ribs are done, they will shrink up on the bone, probe tender with a thermometer or toothpick, and be pretty flexible, as already mentioned.

When cooking BBQ, exact times and temperatures won't help a lot in knowing when the meat is done. It is more of a tactile thing -- how the meat feels.

Like others, I also smoke more in the 250 to 275 range.

CD
 
+1 on 275 or even up to 325. Also I've found that when smoking at higher temps foil is unecessary. I've gotten spares done in 4.5 hrs without foil and they were tender and moist. I would suspect baby backs to be done in around 2.5 or 3 hrs.
 
fingerlickin' said:
If you're looking for great ribs on the cheap, find a $40 Weber kettle on Craigslist and start from there. Here's some examples. Not to say you can't get it done on a gasser but I can tell you really want to cook on charcoal anyway. :grin:
http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125676
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Haha, no charcoal man, don't even remotely have time for that as I have a little baby at home running around. I need set it and forget it hence next year I may pick up a pellet grill or the Bradley smoker!


caseydog said:
Another vote for undercooked. When the ribs are done, they will shrink up on the bone, probe tender with a thermometer or toothpick, and be pretty flexible, as already mentioned.

When cooking BBQ, exact times and temperatures won't help a lot in knowing when the meat is done. It is more of a tactile thing -- how the meat feels.

Like others, I also smoke more in the 250 to 275 range.

CD
Click to expand...

Yeah it looks like they weren't cooked long enough, they needed a strong bite and pull to get them off the bone. Raising the temps to 275 will definitely help, the question is should I smoke longer or foil longer? Folks are saying 2-2-1 and 2-1-1, not sure which is better, I"m guessing spending more time in foil steaming will result in softer meat....

drjiveturkey said:
+1 on 275 or even up to 325. Also I've found that when smoking at higher temps foil is unecessary. I've gotten spares done in 4.5 hrs without foil and they were tender and moist. I would suspect baby backs to be done in around 2.5 or 3 hrs.
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I've done these exact ribs in foil in my oven at 325 for 2.5 hrs and they were pretty good and tender. Finished them on the grill with some bbq sauce but they were a bit too watery.

I'll have to try again this weekend it seems thanks to all of you for your tips. Hard to believe I posted this morning and have like 15 responses! Great forum, glad I joined.
 
TO_bbq said:
BB-Kuhn: Oh ok, I didn't realize I could use 275F everything I read on the web says 225-250F. I'll try to kick up the heat a little so I can get more smoke. I did use the lid temperature, I have a maverick wireless probe so I guess I should use that so I know the temp on the racks not at the top of the BBQ? That's the temp that should read 275 right?

Still learning here, first time doing a long smoke!



The Genesis is big enough for me to keep the ribs far from the left burner heat source indirectly. I could use the warming grate but not sure if that would make a diff?



I thought you can't check internal temp of ribs and you have to look at how far the meat is from the bones and do the 'twist' test? What temp should the ribs at at if I use my meat thermometer? Would this work?
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I usually check just to see where they are at. I still do the bend test and all but I'm usually happy with an IT of +180
 
TO_bbq said:
Hi Folks,
I just did my first slow cook of baby back ribs smoking them on my Weber Genesis gas grill and while the taste was there, they were kinda chewy, not really all that tender and didn't have a smokey flavour. I can't figure out what I did wrong. Here's what I did:

1. I removed the membrane and seasoned my ribs overnight in the Fridge.

2. I used a wood chip holder (triangle shaped fits between the flavourizer bars) - turned up the heat to high to get the box smoking on the far left side of my grill. I had soaked the apple wood chips for a few hrs before putting them in the box.

3. Once the wood was smoking, I reduced the far left burner to as low as possible in order to get the temperature down to ~225F. The thing is in order to get temps that low, the smoke was coming out very little at time at this level, not a lot of smoke was coming (like it was when high). From what I've read, you don't want tons of smoke coming out, but not sure if this was too low.

4. I put the ribs on the far right side of the grill for indirect grilling. I used
the 2-2-1 method here for the baby back ribs. I smoked the ribs for 2hrs indirectly @ ~225F.

5. After 'smoking' for 2 hrs, I wrapped the ribs in foil with apple juice and cooked for another 2 hrs in foil.

6. After the foil cooking, the ribs did look fairly tender. I took off the foil, added smoke again for the last hour and put on my bbq sauce in the last 20 mins. Not sure if this step overcooked the ribs?

Taste wise- ribs were good but they weren't tender even though the 2-2-1 method was supposed to ensure tender ribs. Also, the ribs *barely* had any smoke flavour. I think this was because there wasn't much smoke coming out of the smoker box in order to keep the temp at 225. If I turned up the smoker box burner higher (med-high), then a lot more smoke was coming out but then my temps were hitting 275F+. On my Weber, I had to choose b/w a lot of smoke vs. low temps.

So between the lack of smoke taste and not tender ribs - I don't think this was very successful - what did I do wrong and what should I try next time? This was the first time I cooked for 5 hours on my grill and I'm a bit disappointed with the result.

Any help would be great as I've smoked chicken on my rotisserie before and got a great smoky flavour (but that was smoking at 375F) but these ribs didn't work out as much as I hoped.

Thanks guys!
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I have a smoker box that is made specific for my gasser that sits right on the radiant, or flavorizer bar in weber speak, but I find I get much better smoke using an amazen-tube-smoker (google amazentubesmoker) filled with pellets.

Also, you mention smoking for 2 hours, than covering for 2, then smoking open for another hour. As an fyi, meat will not take on more smoke after it hits 140 degrees internal temp, which your ribs surely were at after 4 hours.

I'd suggest going to 300 degrees as that is probably an easy temp for you to maintain on the gasser. You basically cook them on the grate for 2.5 hours, then 1/2 hour covered, then 15 minutes uncovered with a glaze to set. You can incorporate any misting or mopping you want after the first 45 minutes to 1 hour until you go covered.

Don't let anyone tell you it can't be done on a gasser, it can.
 
> Smoking ribs on a Weber Gas grill - didn't turn out!!

Sorry dude, but from a guy who owns a Weber Genesis, this is going to be tough to do really well.

You mentioned seasoning overnight. Know that this can lead to very salty and/or leathery ribs. I suggest seasoning them only right before putting them on the smoker.

225 is right at the low end, and frankly miserably slow, unnecessarily slow, and can produce very leathery BBQ. Get those temps over 250, 275 is probably perfect. Also, are you using that wonderful thermometer on the front of your Weber. If so; FAIL. We're talking about the temperature on the surface. Get a cheap oven thermometer and place it on the grate. That'll tell you the surface cook temp.

As to the smoke, you may get a little, but it's going to be tough to get a really good quality smoke on them using a gasser, IMHO. They could be *ok*, but not awesome.

The rest, they're right, your ribs sound as if they weren't done yet.

-- I dont know how many racks of ribs I've cooked in the past; perhaps 2000 or 3000, perhaps more. The party that we're having on Saturday just grew, so I'll probably cook 2 cases of baby backs vs. 1 case as I'd planned. We'll see. I cook them right at 275. On my smoker, I cook them 1.5 hours on hickory smoke, then foil them for another 2.5 hours (spritzing heavily before sealing up the foil). At the end, I already have sauce heated; we brush the sauce on very thin. They're right at fall off the bone, but not quite. Prep; the night before I'll remove the membrane and then soak (while iced down) the ribs in an apple juice, water, worchestershire mixture. I pat them dry gently about an hour before placing on the smoker and apply the rub at that time.
 
Hey, Welcome to the forum. Nice to see another Canuck. This is THE place to be for tips and advice delivered in a friendly co-operative environment.

I agree with the suggestions that you bring up the heat to around 275F, and the water pan over the hot side of your grill, and rub before you cook, not the night before. I've had good results with smoking wings with apple chips at 325(ish) in my cheapo Fiesta gasser, but my ribs didn't really take off until I got a Weber kettle, and later built a UDS.

Good luck and have fun.
Matt
 
Lake Dogs said:
> Smoking ribs on a Weber Gas grill - didn't turn out!!

Sorry dude, but from a guy who owns a Weber Genesis, this is going to be tough to do really well.
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smokainmuskoka said:
Hey, Welcome to the forum. Nice to see another Canuck. This is THE place to be for tips and advice delivered in a friendly co-operative environment.

I agree with the suggestions that you bring up the heat to around 275F, and the water pan over the hot side of your grill, and rub before you cook, not the night before. I've had good results with smoking wings with apple chips at 325(ish) in my cheapo Fiesta gasser, but my ribs didn't really take off until I got a Weber kettle, and later built a UDS.

Good luck and have fun.
Matt
Click to expand...

Thanks both of you for your tips (and everyone else). So i made ribs again last night and success! I put the grill at 300 - my Maverick kept reading overcooked as I guess they put a limiter of some sort on how the dumb thing goes, but at the beginning it was about a 50 C diff lower so 250 or so was much better than the 175 I was using before! I will just get a cheap analogue thermometer for my next cook.

I smoked the ribs for 2 hrs using applewood chips, got a good amount of smoke coming out of the grill this time, had to refill the woodchips every 45 mins roughly to keep it going.

I then foiled with apple juice for 1.5 hrs (at 1 hr they were still too tough) - this step really got them soft. Did the bend test and it was really bending well and meat was pulled back from the bone 1/2".

Put back on grill for 15 mins to 'dry' it up a bit and then put on my new fav sauce - Sweet Baby Rays (easy to get in Toronto) and the ribs were very good this time thanks to your tips here.

In terms of smoke, definitely had a smoke flavour but it was quite mild. A little more (but not too much more) would have done the job. No smoke ring either but it did taste pretty good!

So I'm thinking next time - I may move the woodchip box closer to the meat as that may help get more smoke into the ribs. I've heard people using two smoker boxes (one on each side with ribs in the middle) but I'm not sure my grill is big enough for that, would that help?

The other thing is that using the left burner only on the grill - the highest I could get the temp was 300 F (grate temp was lower - will get a oven therm this week), if I want to hit 325 F , I may need to turn that sear burner on a bit but that may bring heat too close to the ribs for indirect grilling unless I get a rib rack and move it all further to the right. What do you guys think?

Thanks for all of the tips - my wife said these were much better than last week as soon as she took the first bite!
 
like BB-Kuhn says, this past weekend i put the ribs on the upper rack of the grill for indirect heat - came out pretty good so i think it can be done. but i am also new and possibly ignorant. (my old gas grill is held together by dirt) and my new set up is coming. so i'm improvising. i put wet but not soaked applewood chips in a aluminum basket near the gas grill flames. i only turned one of the burners on.(the darn things run lengthwise) so indirect even heat is a bit dicey. i also slightly propped up the lid so it would draw - and had a fair amount of smoke. i began rib side down to start on some additional hole poked tinfoil. lots of holes. i'm not sure why i did that. i'm german i guess. after an hour i turned over. i had to put the wood fire out a couple times and i had to add wood. ... at that point i realized my rub was too salty. like bacon salty which was tasty just not the plan. so i rinsed the ribs rubbed more sugar on and sweetened the sauce that i was planning to add w some maple syrup. i also added water to half the sauce (dilution solution?) and put in oven meat side down in pyrex. tightly tinfoiled. i traded out sauce again and put them on the grill again before serving and the company scarfed em down. the salt/sweet evened out i guess.

my best guess on temp is that i was about 275 for smoking for maybe 2 hours.
in oven at 250-75 (sweating out salt) for another 2.
on the grill for a few minutes carmelizing the fresh batch of sauce maybe 15 minutes.
 
Great advice above. I was like you a few years ago, had a nice gas grill (Weber Sumit) and wanted to start smoking. I tried and tried, but it is really tough to keep the temps down with a gasser that leaks air so much. I gave up and bought a Weber Smokey Mountain bullet smoker, added a ceramic cooker two years ago and haven't turned on the gasser since except for 5 minutes this spring when I sold it.

One thing you might try, there are some pretty good smoke generating tools out there. One is called the Amazin Smoke Tube. You can google it and find it easily. It uses wood pellets and will smoke for hours at any temperature you want. That will for sure give you more smoke flavor until you decide what you really want.

Good luck and enjoy your new hobby!!
 
Do you own a CI skillet place that on the Flavorizor bars on one side and put a CHUNK of DRY wood the size of you fist in the skillet on one side. When the wood starts smoking back off the heat a tad, put you ribs on the other side let the temp run up to 275 -300 close the top. Come back in 3 hrs if they bend to 90 deg under their own weight when picked up from the end about 4 bones deep with a set of tongs they are done depending on the rack it may take 3.5 hrs "No Foil was wasted in the Process"
 
My hats off to anyone who smokes on gas. I'm too chicken to try. I rely on the bend test and cook between 250-275. I do not wrap until the end. I pull the ribs, sauce with a loose homemade sauce , wrap and rest 15 or so minutes. So far they have turned out real good. I also mop every hour and have a water pan as well
 
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