IA Newbie w/ Rib Question

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pettitjoel

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 24, 2009
11
10
Indianola, IA 50125
Hello all. I recently was handed down an ECB from my wife's grandfather, so I have been experimenting when time allows and learning a lot from all of your posts on this site. Absolutely love the qviews and all of the techniques you all share.

This past Saturday I tried to to do 2 racks of spare ribs on the top rack and a fatty filled with some pasta, pepperoni, diced peppers and cheese on the lower rack. This was my first rib attempt.

My plan was to 3-2-1 the ribs with the smoker around 230-240 degrees using Wicked Good Lump with some hickory. It was colder out than expected but I was able to run around 215 - 225 the whole time.

At the end of 3 hours the ribs had a beautiful color and pulped around 140. I put them in foil with apple juice and back on for 2.25 hours (had to watch end of UNI - KU game). I forgot to pulp them when I took off the foil.

One hour later I checked them again and they pulped at 177. So I thought I was good to go and pulled them off the smoker. Once inside I found they were pretty tough texture wise. I was expecting to be able to cut them up in 3 rib sections pretty easily. This was not the case.

Any idea where I went wrong? Did I go too long after foiling?

Thanks for any ideas or help you can pass along. JP

P.S. the fatty was great!!
 
First off welcome to SMF. You'll like this place for there are alot of really good folks here that would just love to help you with just about anything to do with smoking meat. Now for your ribs, they are just abiut the only thing that we cook by time and not temp. If you stick to the 3-2-1 method you should be good and have you some falling off the bone ribs too. Now it sound like you shorted the time and thats why you came out with some tough ribs. I would say that cause you took the ribs temp and then pulled them earily. I don't ever probe my ribs but I like them with alitle pull so I shorten the time in the foil to 45 minutes. So let me know how you did them and welcome again.
 
I've never used a thermo on ribs before, so I don't know if 177 is good or not. Do you recall how much the meat had pulled back from the bone? I usually use that as an indication, like if there's a half-inch of bone sticking out the side then they're probably about done.

edit: Oh yeah, and welcome to the SMF!
 
Sounds like you did everything right, maybe the ribs you picked up were just real tuff.
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Thanks for all of the input.

I'll give it another shot soon, and post with some Qview.

Sounds like doing ribs is more about feel than other cuts of meat.
 
welcome from Des Moines, did you remove the silver skin? If left on it will give some toughness problems.
I would also recommend you check that thermometer as they are known to be sketchy on them ecbs
 
Thanks JDT.

I did remove the silver skin and I had a thermometer probe on the grill grate. My ECB thermometer is useless. My probe will say 230 degrees and the ECB will be on the "A" in warm.
 
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