First time cooking spare ribs.....

Cheech and Chong · Oct 24, 2021

I cooked up 3 full racks of spares and the results were average I think. I kept the temp mostly around 250. I think the issue might be that I didn't trim them to St Louis ribs. The thinner ends reach temp and doneness way before the thicker end so by the time the thick portion is done the thin end is over cooked.

How do you not overcook the thin side? 4 hours at 250, then 1.5 hours in foil to get the thick portion over 200. Was the 250 too low? My next 3 racks will be trimmed.

Big George's BBQ · Oct 24, 2021

Looks good A lot of people trim and used the trimmings as the chefs treat

Mike Twangzer · Oct 24, 2021

Looks great to me !!!

Shadowdog500 · Oct 24, 2021

They look good to me.

I don’t use a stick burner so I can’t give advise on what to do in your situation.

I will say that the small end is always done before the big end. I do full slabs in my WSM at around 225 with water and beer in the pan and the small end never burns because of the low temp and water buffer.

I’m also wondering how you check your ribs for doneness. I use the toothpick test to probe for tenderness. The small end is always probe tender first. When the thick end probes like the thin end the ribs are done.

Monkey Uncle · Oct 24, 2021

You answered your own question. I think spares cook much better when trimmed down to STL. Everything gets done at the same time. I freeze the tips and then cook them next time I'm doing butts. The tip meat gets pulled and mixed with the butts.

ronbrad62 · Oct 24, 2021

I agree that when you cut the ribs down and square them up more, they will cook more evenly. If you continue doing full spares, then I would just rotate them around in the smoker because if you have them positioned the same way the entire cook, one end is going to cook faster than the other. I would often have ribs on the outsides cook faster during competition than the ones in the middle, but cooking on a drum, they were more exposed to the heat coming right up, so I just started making sure I positioned them better and rotated more often.
Have you ever done the biscuit test on your smoker? Look it up on YouTube and you'll find your hotspots and you'll see where you need to rotate the thicker and the thinner ends to in order to get a more even cook.

LYU370 · Oct 24, 2021

Trim them down next time and put in the freezer. When you have enough, it's time for Rib Tips!!! Possibly even better than ribs.

rque · Oct 24, 2021

ronbrad62 said:
I agree that when you cut the ribs down and square them up more, they will cook more evenly. If you continue doing full spares, then I would just rotate them around in the smoker because if you have them positioned the same way the entire cook, one end is going to cook faster than the other. I would often have ribs on the outsides cook faster during competition than the ones in the middle, but cooking on a drum, they were more exposed to the heat coming right up, so I just started making sure I positioned them better and rotated more often.
Have you ever done the biscuit test on your smoker? Look it up on YouTube and you'll find your hotspots and you'll see where you need to rotate the thicker and the thinner ends to in order to get a more even cook.

I’m brand new to offsets and I learned this the hard way this weekend. One end was literally fall of the bone while the other was a little like pork roast still. I should really do that biscuit test and rotate based on that information. My fire management also needs work but that’s another story.

Cheech and Chong · Oct 24, 2021

I will try the biscuit test when I get a chance. I did rotate all 3 racks every 30 minutes. I wanted to make sure 1 rack didn't spend all that time closest to the fire chamber. Live and learn I guess.

sudsandswine · Oct 24, 2021

Using your last pic as a guide, and it’s obviously all I have to go off of, it looks to me like both the tip end on the left and the bone end on the right are over cooked. It looks like the underside took more of a beating than the top, so maybe that has something to do with the direction the heat is coming from.

I pretty much always trim to St Louis style because I like to use the deboned tips for sausage grind, and my personal preference for ribs is to not deal with the cartilage and what not in the rib tips when I’m having ribs.

First time cooking spare ribs.....

Cheech and Chong

Got Wood.

Big George's BBQ

somebody shut me the fark up.

Mike Twangzer

is One Chatty Farker

Shadowdog500

is One Chatty Farker

Monkey Uncle

is one Smokin' Farker

ronbrad62

somebody shut me the fark up.

LYU370

Resident Idjit

rque

Knows what a fatty is.

Cheech and Chong

Got Wood.

sudsandswine

Quintessential Chatty Farker

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