Memorial day my wife and I decided to hang home and do some chores and start re-finishing an old hutch/cabinet. So I thought it would be a great day to cook some Spicy St. Louis Style Ribs on the Brinkmann Trailmaster LE. I actually planned to do this days in advance, I had the ribs marinating in the Ludwig Rib Rub since Saturday.
Around 11:00am I started some coals in my chimney and then laid them over some coals and Mesquite wood chunks in the Trailmaster’s char-coal basket. This was the first time using the basket, I’ll talk more about that in my Brinkmann Trailmaster Char-coal Basket thread, but it worked really well. Got the fire going and got the smoker up to around 200*.
When the Brinkmann hit 200* I put the ribs on, closer to the exhaust side. (I had about a 3* difference between firebox and exhaust side.) I was planning on a 3-2-1 smoke routine wrapping with apple juice and some Ludwig Spicy BBQ sauce. After about an hour I noticed that temps were spiking, my mouse trap design in my coal basket wasn’t working and all the coals were starting to light. So I pulled the basket out and removed about 1/3 of the coals and put it back in. temps decreased to right around 220* and remained there throughout the majority of the cook.
After about 3 hours I wrapped the St. Louis Style Ribs as planned with apple juice and some Ludwig Spicy BBQ sauce and back on to the smoker they went. At the same time I put 3 crocks of black beans and onions on the smoker as well as some fingerling potatoes.
After 2 more hours I pulled the ribs, un-wrapped and placed back on the smoker. I moved the potatoes to the firebox grill grate to get them cooking well. After un-wrapping and moving the potatoes I lost a lot of heat and the fire wasn’t picking up enough to get it back up to temp quickly at all. It hoovered right around 180* for about 30mins and hit 205* at around 45 minutes. I had added some coals, some wood, shook the old ash out, and emptied the ash tray. I’m not sure if that helped or hindered the situation, but none the less, my 3-2-1 turned out more of a 3-2-2.
I did take pictures of it off the grill and cut up to show how nice the smoke ring was and how tender they were, but sadly when I was carrying the camera and other stuff back inside I must have switched modes on my camera with out noticing and those photos are pretty much black.
grrrr!!! Oh well next time right :)