First Ribs.... DONE!

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92hatchattack

Senior Cook
Joined
Jun 13, 2007
Messages
113
Location
new jersey
First off I'd like to thank all the members from this forum, as well as The Smoke Ring forum for all the help, from building my uds to getting my first rib cook done.

SO.... Friday night i got started mixing up the Memphis Dust rub.
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Saturday around 11am i got to preping the ribs from sams club, pulled the membrane and rubbed them down. Strangely enough it seemed that one of the 3 racks didnt have a membrane on them. I mean, i could see something that looked like a shinny skin, but it was under some fat and looked the same as the other racks even after i had pulled the membranes off them.

So here we are at about 2:30 with the ribs rubbed and ready to hit the smoker.

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Got them on the UDS at about 2:45. It was another windy day and i was having some temperature issues. For starters i think the wind was blowing into the done top vent of my cooker and this was causing the temp to be much cooler near the top of the dome than it was 6" lower at the grate( I was using a rib rack so the ribs were standing on their sides). About 45 mins into the cook i realized this and opened her up to transfer the ribs to the bottom rack. This was a good learning experience. Now i know to only cook things that are flat on the top rack, and keep things like butts or ribs in a rack on the bottom. Temps continued to be up and down throught the cook, probally due to the wind and the fact that its a new uds, but were in range except for about 20 mins where the temps dropped to 180. I had closed the bottom vent off a few minutes before taking the ribs off to foil and forgot to open it back up.

So cook times were 2:15 in the smoker, 1 hour in foil with juice, and 1 more hour without foil. Took the 3 racks off, got some sauce on them and on the grill to finish up the sauce.

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Personally, for my first time making them i really though they turned out very well. They had a little too much pull to them, and could have been a little more "fall off the bone", but my worst fear was that they would be very tough, and this was not the case at all! One of the 3 racks was less meaty, and this one seemed to have perfect pull on it. In fact it ripped itself in half when i tried to get it off the grill, so i figured id snap a good pic.

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And thats it! My friends loved them, and allthough after teasing me all afternoon about how long it was taking to cook some stupid ribs, all agreed that they were worth the wait. There was about 10 of us, and the 3 racks totaling about 10 pounds were gone in less than 5 minutes. I think i only got to have 2 ribs, as by the time i finished a rack up on the grill the previous one was gone already!

Was about 6 hours total prep time woth the 5 minutes the ribs lasted???
HELL YEAH IT WAS!

Thanks you all so much for all your help. None of this would have been possible without all of your knowledge!

---Joe
 
Looks very good for your first time out. Good job. Next time leave one rack plain and serve the sauce the side. You might be surprized and like them better. ;) 8)
 
Congrats on your ribs Joe!
They look delicious from here. Thanks
for sharin' the great pics!

8)
 
Really nice looking ribs. You have to be proud about that.

Where I live it's up in the foothills a bit and we get a lot of wind in the afternoons. I have a couple of portable saw horses that I use with half sheets of 1/4 inch plywood for wind screens. I clamp the sheets to the legs of the sawhorse with glue clamps that cabinet makers use to hold sheets of wood together. I kind of make a triangle of wood around my WSM when the wind picks up enough to affect the temps. Sounds like a lot of work but I keep everything handy and it doesn't take much to set them up. Just a suggestion.
 
Thanks for the kind words guys. After stressing about making good ribs all week long it was such a relief when they turned out well. I cant wait to make some more!
 
Great looking 1st ribs! Sounds like you were able to overcome some obstacles while cooking too. You"re starting out strong. Glad you got two ribs. Did you have to pull them out of a friends hand!? :LOL: :) Makes it all worth wild when everyone likes your cooking.
 
Awesome. I love a little char on my ribs. I've been practicing comp ribs every other stinken weekend for the whole winter. Once I get a call in ribs I'll have them mastered and I can go back to my tratitional method which includes finishing em off on the grill. Again good looken ribs! Like that grill. Post some more picts of it. What kind of lump is that?
 
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