Well, Saturday May 31 was the day for my first foray into smoking… I decided to try baby back ribs since those are supposed to be pretty easy to do.
I went and picked up 3 slabs of baby backs from my local butcher (www.thecornerbutchershop.com) and put some Bad Bryon’s Butt Rub (www.buttrub.com) on them and let that sit for about 12 hours.
While the ribs were coming up to room temp I set up the WSM and lit the charcoal to cook in the “Minion Method”.
Starter coals are just about ready!
Coals and a few chunks of hickory ready for the smoker to be assembled.
Ribs in position and ready to be cooked!
Here are the ribs after cooking for about 3 hours. In hindsight, they were probably pretty close to done here, but I just was not aware of it. My thermometer was showing temps lower that what I was shooting for (avg 200 when I wanted about 230) but I don’t think it was accurate…
Ribs ready to eat after basting with some K.C. Masterpiece sauce.
Ribs cut up (pretty hard to do when they are overcooked as much as these were) and some corn on the cob that I seasoned with Lantana steak seasoning (www.lantanaoftexas.com) and cooked wraped in foil for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours on the smoker.
The ribs were WAY overdone as will be attested to by my official taste tester Ashley when he chimes in. They were edible as the next photo will show, but most of the meat was almost jerky. The parts that did still have some moisture to them did show a very nice smoke ring though. The next cook (tonight!) is a couple of pork butts overnight and hopefully they will go a little better. Look for that post in the next couple of days.
Picture of the carnage that two big guys can make to 3 racks of ribs, even if they are overcooked…
Hello, thought I would drop by and let you know about the baby back ribs I grilled on the BBQ this weekend. If you want to come by and check them out my wordpress blog is @
http://cookingquest.wordpress.com
I want to pick up one of those smokers and try it out. Are you liking it and is it a weber?
Thanks!
Comment by joejhorn — June 24, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
Thanks for checking out my site Joe. Those ribs of yours looked mighty good. I will definatley be watching your site from now on…
To answer your question, yes my smoker is a Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker, even though I have only 2 cooks so far on it, I love it!
Comment by Big Dad II — June 25, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Cool, I’ve really wanted to buy one and some some long cooks with it. I’ve heard it will handle 12 to 18 hour long cooks on one load of coals. I think this weekend I will be out there buying one. Just have to convince the wife!!
Thanks for coming and checking out my blog. I have yours bookmark!
Comment by joejhorn — June 25, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
Good luck! My second cook of pork butt cooked for about 13 1/2 hours and I never had to put any extra charcoal on at all.
Comment by Big Dad II — June 25, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
I remember my first rack of ribs… I had no clue what was going on and they were “edible” at best. I finally figured it out, with alot of help from my friends.
To help you out, I am inviting you over to Deejay’s Smoke Pit Forums ( http://deejaysworld.net/deejayssmokepit/yabb/YaBB.pl ). There are tons of great folks with tons of ideas and recipes, and all of us have been through what you are going through. You will fit right into our humble group!
It’s all free, and there are no strings attached. Come join us!
Comment by HawgHeaven — June 27, 2008 @ 3:09 pm