Ribs getting TOO tender

[SmokyMose]

Bone side down, foil, bend test. We like them FOTB...

 

[joe black]

Any that are ready, I'd go ahead and finish them and take off. If the others are at 45* bend, they may be ready when the others are done and you can go ahead and sauce them. I would rest the first ones 30 minutes and serve. The last ones will work good for seconds.

 

[cornfedkiller]

Thanks for all the help guys.  I would say the batch I made yesterday was my best to date.  The night before, I put mustard on them and then rubbed them.  I use a mixture of Lambert's Sweet Rub O Mine and Bone Suckin' Sauce rub. 

I set the grill to 250 and put the 5 racks on.  Every half hour or so, I moved them around on the grill, in case there were spots on the grill hotter than others. After 1.5 hours or so, I turned them all over, bone side up and let them go for another hour or so, before flipping them back over to bone side down.  

At the 3 hour mark, I started bend testing them and some of them were within 15 mins of being done.  When they were done, I took them off (I think I had 3 ready at once) and just put them on a cookie sheet in the kitchen.  When the last two racks had a good bend about 20 mins later, I took them off and glazed them all with my fiance's homemade BBQ sauce (which is much better than any store bought!).  Gave them 15 mins, glazed again, and gave them 15 more mins.  

Ribs had excellent flavor, meat was perfectly done, and the meat had a nice tug to it.  Sorry I dont have any pics..

 

[burgerbob]

 
Question for you guys..

I have ribs on the smoker right now, and some of them I'm starting to get a pretty good bend (they are a little thinner than some of the others, and maybe they were on a hotter spot on the grill).  They are JUST starting to crack on the surface a tiny bit, but down pretty much vertical when I grab them 1/3 of the way in.  

A couple other racks still don't hardly bend, and maybe only hang down at a 45 degree angle.

What do I do with the ones that are ready, when I still have others that aren't?  Just take them off and lay them on a pan and leave them on the kitchen counter until they are all done?  

Then sauce/glaze and put them all back on at the same time for another 15 mins, then sauce again and repeat for 15 more mins? 

Sorry I'm just now getting to this post, I hope to God your ribs still aren't on the smoker!  In situations where your food is getting done quicker than you expected you can use a "faux cambro" to keep it warm for hours and I do mean hours.  A "faux cambro" is wrapping the meat tightly in aluminum foil, wrapping that in towels then placing the whole thing in a plastic cooler (without ice).  If you have enough room I would stuff more towels or blankets inside.  I recommend using old towels or blankets in case your food starts leaking out of the foil for some reason.  Doing this will keep your food nice and hot for a longer period of time.  An example of how long it will keep it warm, I had a pork butt get done at 11:30 a.m. and we were planning on eating dinner around 7ish that evening.  I wrapped in foil, wrapped in a couple of towels then put a towel on the bottom of the cooler, placed the towel/foil wrapped meat in the cooler, then put another towel on top.  Kept the plastic cooler closed until 7 p.m. and then when I opened it and pulled the pork butt out, it was still too hot to handle with my bare hands, had to use my BBQ gloves.  There was steam coming off it and everything.  It's better to be done early and do the faux cambro than it is to be done late.  The closer to dinner time you get and the more anxious you get, the more you'll be opening the smoker to check on the food.  The more you do that, the longer it will take.  You're releasing all the heat every time you open it and so you're making things a lot worse for yourself.  Hope this helps out in the future since it obviously didn't help with this smoke.

 

[rburgundy]

New here and came across this old thread via google. I smoked some St. Louis style ribs this past weekend, they were literally falling away from the bone when I barely touched them with the knife. I'm just wondering why this is a bad thing? Unless it's just for aesthetic reasons? The meat was incredibly tender and I didn't mind eating it in more of a pulled pork style.

 

[banderson7474]

New here and came across this old thread via google. I smoked some St. Louis style ribs this past weekend, they were literally falling away from the bone when I barely touched them with the knife. I'm just wondering why this is a bad thing? Unless it's just for aesthetic reasons? The meat was incredibly tender and I didn't mind eating it in more of a pulled pork style.

It's just based on people's taste well in this case maybe texture. I like my ribs to have a bite to it and fall off the bone doesn't have the same texture...to me. I seem to get more other stuff too when it's fall off the bone...maybe it's cartilage or something, I don't know.

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

It is all personal preference for us backyard smokers.
For competition BBQers, FOTB is not a good thing.
They could get dinged if those bones don't have bite to them.
If FOTB is not your thing, then cut back on the amount of time and liquid used during the foil wrap.

Or just go nekkid!