I smoked my first rack of ribs in my #2 Smokin-it over the weekend. They were FANTASTIC and I wanted to give you the play-by-play so you could see what I did and offer any of your favorite tips:
1) I bought 2 really high quality racks of Spareribs at Sam's Club. I could tell that the meat was really well marbled and super high quality
2) The night before I cut the racks in half (so they would fit in my #2), trimmed the excess fat, applied mustard as a binder and coated them with the following rub recipe
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons Spanish paprika
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon celery salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme
3) I wrapped the ribs and let them sit in the fridge overnight
4) The next morning I loaded the smoker with a chunk of cherry wood that weighed exactly 2.5 ounces. I bought the wood from smokinlicous.com
5) I filled a disposable aluminum mini loaf pan with apple juice and put it right up against the smoke box on the bottom of the smoker
5) I put the ribs in at 225 degrees.
6) One rack I did the 3-2-1 method
7) The other rack I did the no-peek method (though technically I did peek to wrap the other rack in foil)
At 6 hours I checked the temp and the meat was only in the 170s. We had company over that I coundn't keep waiting so I took out the 2 smallest halves and left the other 2 halves to get in the 190s. In the end the ribs were really, really great even if I wish I had another hour to smoke the first halves. They were still amazing. I also didn't taste a real difference between the ribs that were wrapped in foil for 2 of the hours and the ones that just sat there. I felt the amount of smoke was just about perfect the day of though I wish it had a bit more smoke the next day when I had leftovers. What would I do differently next time?
- Next time I will bump up the amount of wood to 3 ounces for a slightly stronger flavor. I also want to try hickory just to compare flavors
- I will plan an extra hour of cooking time for the 2 racks of ribs to make sure the temp is in the 190s
- I will probably do the no-peek method again since the racks really turned out the same and the no-peek method is easier
I really think a lot of the quality had to do with the high quality ribs from Sam's as well as the high quality wood form Smokinlicous. Any recommendations for my next try?
