Beer/Meat/Victory
Full Fledged Farker
Ribs look good but damn that’s a long time. I filled my smoker twice today with Spares- 14 racks per round and had basically 2 full cooks done in less time than that rack.
9 hours St Louis ribs?
- Thread starter mph33
- Start date
mph33
Full Fledged Farker
It might have been because it was raining like a son of a bitch last night that might have had something to do with it. like I said before, I've never had ribs take this long to cook
El Ropo
Quintessential Chatty Farker
Grate temps were fubar. Please callibrate your probe(s). I refuse to believe that it takes 9 hours to cook any rack of stl spares. Please prove me wrong since I've never had a similar cook take more than 4.5 hours at higher cooking temps. At this point it's a science experiment. As in WTF went wrong? My whole theory behind cooking ribs is the shorter amount of time in the cooker, the more moist and tender they will be. 4 hours at 275-325F, done. Pig honey soaks in done. Sorry, but something isn't right.
mph33
Full Fledged Farker
Today I done a test run on my smoker to see if something was wrong with either three probes that I have for this temperature controller and I also used my chef alarm grill grate probe... they were literally three degrees apart. everything was accurate. Maybe this was one old ass hog that got the living hell beat out of it 24/7 was stressed out, never ate nothing good and was dead in the cellar for 3 years before they decided to send it to the grocery stores to be sold. This was very very odd.
SmoothBoarBBQ
is Blowin Smoke!
I usually load my smoker up and do 20-30 racks of ribs at a time for vending, and at 250° my St. Louis ribs are perfectly tender within 5 hours, no wrap, no spritz. Rain won't effect your cook time much at all as long as your cook temp stays the same. Higher humidity can actually help to steam the ribs and cook them faster. You alluded to a heat deflector and that could be the culprit...there's just no way that those ribs were getting 250° for 9 hours and not being totally mush or burned to a crisp. I've cook on kamados, offsets, kettles, cinder block pits, and now I'm cooking on a cabinet and I've never come across 9 hour ribs at 250.
Can you take a pic of your setup with the heat deflector installed, and where you had your grate probe? Note : those grate probes are usually very sensitive, so if you've got the probe near a hotspot it will pick up on that very easily. This could have led you to believe that you were cooking at 250 when you were likely cooking at 190-200.
Pretty much all of us are saying the same thing here...odds are that your probe is off in some manner...either bad placement or your heat deflector is doing something odd in that cooker that you weren't anticipating.
If you post some pics of your setup it might help determine what's going on at the grate level. How'd your chicken cook go?
Can you take a pic of your setup with the heat deflector installed, and where you had your grate probe? Note : those grate probes are usually very sensitive, so if you've got the probe near a hotspot it will pick up on that very easily. This could have led you to believe that you were cooking at 250 when you were likely cooking at 190-200.
Pretty much all of us are saying the same thing here...odds are that your probe is off in some manner...either bad placement or your heat deflector is doing something odd in that cooker that you weren't anticipating.
If you post some pics of your setup it might help determine what's going on at the grate level. How'd your chicken cook go?
mph33
Full Fledged Farker
After cooking some bird last night, I checked the temperature with both of these probes and they were within three degrees of each other. When I have a large piece of meat on the smoker I always try to keep the probe an inch or two away from the cold meat and away from the edges to where I'm not getting hot spots coming from the side. I do have another probe that's a clip that they recommend placing on the handles of the grill grate but I've tried that and it seems like it's a little too high from the meat and the temperatures are higher. You can see the heat deflector shield that I use instead of a water pan. I don't think it deflects heat as well as a water pan but the water pan is messy and I just prefer to use this instead. I will say this, don't ever use that heat deflector pan without wrapping in tin foil that it is hell to clean.
mph33
Full Fledged Farker
For all you wondering about the nine-hour smoke here it is
mph33
Full Fledged Farker
F$#@! This
SmoothBoarBBQ
is Blowin Smoke!
Your setup looks good (as does that chicken) and that's pretty much exactly how I would set things up. Did the chicken cook as you expected in terms of time?
Only other thing I can think of is that you had the lid off quite a few times, but you said you only spritzed twice. So I'm out of ideas and perhaps you came across some kind of mythical ribs. I did notice that you had quite a bit of the rib tips (often referred to as the "brisket bone") still attached. Those rib tips take longer to get tender than the actual ribs themselves, so perhaps that created a situation where those rib tips were soaking up more of the heat than the actual ribs. This can happen if those rib tips are cooler (since they take longer to heat up) than the actual ribs. Thermodynamics wants to equalize everything, and if those rib tips are cooler than the ribs, the rib tips will attract more heat than the ribs themselves.
I've cooked full spares before and they did take longer than doing St. Louis cut ribs. Maybe give it another try and get all that rib-tip meat off and do a true St. Louis cut and see how it works out. Obviously the ribs looked good and you were wise enough not to take them off the cooker before they were tender, so good job.
Only other thing I can think of is that you had the lid off quite a few times, but you said you only spritzed twice. So I'm out of ideas and perhaps you came across some kind of mythical ribs. I did notice that you had quite a bit of the rib tips (often referred to as the "brisket bone") still attached. Those rib tips take longer to get tender than the actual ribs themselves, so perhaps that created a situation where those rib tips were soaking up more of the heat than the actual ribs. This can happen if those rib tips are cooler (since they take longer to heat up) than the actual ribs. Thermodynamics wants to equalize everything, and if those rib tips are cooler than the ribs, the rib tips will attract more heat than the ribs themselves.
I've cooked full spares before and they did take longer than doing St. Louis cut ribs. Maybe give it another try and get all that rib-tip meat off and do a true St. Louis cut and see how it works out. Obviously the ribs looked good and you were wise enough not to take them off the cooker before they were tender, so good job.
mph33
Full Fledged Farker
Maybe it's nature working against me because the universe wants me to buy a stick burner. I love my WSM but it's annoying rotating meat and keeping a thin blue smoke. Thanks for the advice brother
Porcine Perfection
is One Chatty Farker
Yeah, cuz stick burners are trouble free. 
I too have used an Auber with a WSM flawlessly and those ribs look outstanding for being on a grate for so long unwrapped. I have no doubt you know what you are doing. A head shaker for sure.
I too have used an Auber with a WSM flawlessly and those ribs look outstanding for being on a grate for so long unwrapped. I have no doubt you know what you are doing. A head shaker for sure.
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I recently smoked 2 slabs of Premium Swift STL ribs on my pellet pooper.
I started at 250 and turned up to 300 after 5 hours to get them done.
Was probing for doneness and after more than 6 hours, still nowhere close.
Took 7,5 hours, including about 45mins wrapped in BP.
They were some of the best, moistest ribs I´ve ever done.
It´s ready when it´s ready.
I started at 250 and turned up to 300 after 5 hours to get them done.
Was probing for doneness and after more than 6 hours, still nowhere close.
Took 7,5 hours, including about 45mins wrapped in BP.
They were some of the best, moistest ribs I´ve ever done.
It´s ready when it´s ready.
Chett. L
is one Smokin' Farker
Looks Great!
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Well, that pic is a thing of beauty. From now on I'm cooking my ribs for a minimum of 9 hours! :thumb:
Braumeister
Knows what a fatty is.
I just cooked my last rack of Costco ribs took 6 1/2 hours and 200° before they finally relaxed, longest I've ever cooked a rack of baby back's...Pete
ps cooked at 240° in the big green egg.
ps cooked at 240° in the big green egg.
JEStucker
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Some of these Spare's from Costco lately have been... well... problematic.
If seen reports of them being rancid right out of the cryovac.
I've heard similar stories about extremely long cook times a few times now.
I'm wondering if markets aren't being as selective about their hogs coming as they were pre-Covid... when all the processors were shutting down and causing the meat shortages, I'm thinking they started taking everything to try and get back to prior production numbers.
I've got a few monster slabs, and bigger usually means older when slaughtered, in my freezer that I'm going to be checking very closely when I thaw them and start cooking.
If seen reports of them being rancid right out of the cryovac.
I've heard similar stories about extremely long cook times a few times now.
I'm wondering if markets aren't being as selective about their hogs coming as they were pre-Covid... when all the processors were shutting down and causing the meat shortages, I'm thinking they started taking everything to try and get back to prior production numbers.
I've got a few monster slabs, and bigger usually means older when slaughtered, in my freezer that I'm going to be checking very closely when I thaw them and start cooking.
Nuco59
Babbling Farker
Ribs in 9 hours? Pass- If I'm going that long, I'm doing brisket. :-D
I've got some I'm unfoiling right about now. Put them on at 1:15. Foiled at 3:15- unfoiling at 4:30. Will see how long the grate time will take- thinking 45 minutes or so. (disclaimer- I don't prefer them foiled and wet-the wife does. You know what they say "happy wife? Less nagging"
I've got some I'm unfoiling right about now. Put them on at 1:15. Foiled at 3:15- unfoiling at 4:30. Will see how long the grate time will take- thinking 45 minutes or so. (disclaimer- I don't prefer them foiled and wet-the wife does. You know what they say "happy wife? Less nagging"
Jlems
Full Fledged Farker
Had a 3 pack of them recently that had an off smell to them. Hopefully never again.
