Greetings from Perth, Australia!

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

salazar

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 21, 2014
3
11
Hi all - 

Yes, I'm from the place where people drop their brand new iPhone 6 on the street in front of live TV cameras - please don't hold that against me!

A few months ago, friends and family all chipped in to buy me a 4 rack digital Bradley smoker! I've been banging on for months about how i love the art and flavour behind low and slow bbq.. chicken wings, ABTs, cheeses, sausage... i am getting myself hungry just typing all of this!

I've successfully smoked delicious homemade italian sausages, but my main reason for wanting the Bradley is ribs. I watched a number of youtube videos, and found a few forums with some very helpful info.. i thought i was ready.. 

2 attempts later, while the meat was full of flavour, my ribs weren't tender enough at all. Both times i tried using the 3-2-1 method, and both times the ribs came out quite dry and tough. 

my process has been as follows: 

i'm removing the membrane and trimming the skirt, then applying a dry rub and leaving overnight in the fridge. 

with the smoker set to 225, i smoke for 3 hours with hickory, then foil with a generous spritz of apple juice for two hours, then returning for about 45 mins as they started to look quite dry. the second time i tried FTC for the last 45 mins, but it still didn't give me the results i was after. Both times i was smoking 3 full racks, with the lowest rack empty. 

they don't necessarily need to be falling off the bone, but i at least wanted them to be juicy inside.  

I wasn't sure if the cuts of meat were different over here (i find that ours are usually a lot thinner than those i see on photos from US sites), and therefore required less cooking time.. but i'm really wanting to improve my results.. i now have a dual probe so i can see smoke temp and internal meat temp as well. 

i think next time i'm going to try to foil them for longer.. and obviously wait until the meat is pulling back from the bone before i even think of serving them up. 

a few questions though if anyone would care to answer: 

1. should i be seeing the meat pullback from the bones before i wrap in foil, or should that start happening during the foil process ?

2.  if i want to spritz the ribs with apple juice, do i need to remove the racks from the bradley, or can i just open the door and directly spritz onto the ribs (i'm worried about too much temperature drop from removing all of the racks, but i also don't want to ruin the smoker :)

3. will injecting the ribs prior to cooking give me better results, or should i try to keep it simple before getting carried away ?!

p.s. i just bought jeff's rub and sauce recpie, so i'm dying to try it on a new rack of ribs!

I look forward to frequenting these forums often, and hope to share some future smoking results with pics very soon :) 

Thanks, 

Mark.
 
texas.gif
  Good morning and welcome to the forum, from a cooling down East Texas. Lots of great people with tons of information on just about                  everything

Here is what I do:   remove the membrane, rub down both sides with yellow mustard or olive oil then apply seasoning. Then on the smoker for about 3 hours I spritz every so often with apple juice or a 50/50 mix of apple juice and apple cider vinegar. Then I get ready to wrap. I put a piece of foil down and lay down a few lines of squeeze margarine a little honey, a sprinkle of brown sugar and seasoning, then lay my rack of ribs over that mixture the apply the same again to the top of the ribs along with a good spritzing. Wrap them up tight then back on the smoker for about 2 hours, (the mixture sealed in with the ribs keeps them moist and creates steam which causes the ribs to cook faster and stay moist)( If you leave them in the foil to long they will be falling off the bone.)  I then unwrap and return to the smoker to finish up. When you unwrap you will see the meat has pulled back from the bone and Should be plenty moist. You need to judge if they need and hour, 45 min. or less As the outside starts to dry out I continue to spritz. When finished bring then inside let them rest (just a little) you can spritz more apply finishing sauce or just start eating. Some people like to sauce right before they pull them off the smoker.  I too smoke at 225 º

Sometimes it's just the ribs that are tough or lean and tend to dry out.  I have smoked ribs countless times and sometimes there seams to be a rack or two that takes a little longer or not quite as good as the rest, It happens

            Gary
 
  • Like
Reactions: ghst
Thanks for the warm welcome, Gary!

excellent tips.. i'm sure my next rack will be an improvement :) 

Given i have an Electric Bradley smoker, do i need to take the ribs out to spritz, or can i just open the door and spritz away ?
 
 
Thanks for the warm welcome, Gary!

excellent tips.. i'm sure my next rack will be an improvement :) 

Given i have an Electric Bradley smoker, do i need to take the ribs out to spritz, or can i just open the door and spritz away ?
I am a stick burner so I just open the lid and spritz, I would think you could do the same Maybe a watt burner will chime in and let us know for sure

Gary
 
Glad you joined the group. The search bar at the top of any page is your best friend.
About anything you wanna know about smoking/grilling/curing/brining/cutting or slicing
and the list goes on has probably been posted. Remember to post a QVIEW of your smokes.
We are all smoke junkies here and we have to get our fix. If you have questions
Post it and you will probably get 10 replies with 11 different answers. That is
because their are so many different ways to make great Q...
Happy smoken.
David
 
Hi guys, 

Armed with my new knowledge from reading this forum, and determined to get my smoking game better - i woke up last saturday, drove straight to my local butcher and bought a stack of chicken wings, ribs and sausages ready for a Sunday afternoon smoke.. .. 

First of all i needed to make the rub (jeff's famous of course! but i had to tone down the heat for my better half).. 


into the shaker bottle and ready for rib application


The ribs came trimmed perfectly from the butcher, so all i had to do was remove the membrane, lovingly caress some olive oil onto my slab and apply the rub: 



Wrapped it in plastic and put it in the fridge until it was time to fire up the smoker on Sunday. 

When the time came Sunday morning i placed the ribs into my Digital Bradley smoker, but they looked far too lonely. Knowing that it's practically blasphemous to smoke on only a single rack, i quickly added some italian sausages and a chicken breast to keep it company (with a little rub for good measure as well). 


While the ribs and starters were getting nice and smokey.. i started on my wings. 

I'd recently purchased an injector from ebay, and it arrived just in time! i mixed some louisiana wing sauce with some melted butter and got to injecting.. 


added some rub to both sides of the wings.. 


then into the smoker they went!


now that's a smoker ready to serve up a decent lunch! (i'm smoking with Hickory today, in case you're wondering!)

Sausages and Chicken were ready when they came up to temperature, so i sliced them up and served them immediately. i've never had chicken so perfectly cooked. the flavor was amazing and it was so moist and juicy.. everyone commented on how great it was (will definitely be making again). 


After the 3 hours of smoking, the ribs were ready for foiling. i put a little Apple juice into the bottom of a foil pan and foiled the whole thing (i think this was critical to the process of getting the ribs as tender as they were in the end). 

 
The chicken wings were soon done as well, so they came straight out of the smoker and onto my pre-heated grill to crisp up and baste with more hot sauce. i think i made a few neighbors jealous with how good this was smelling. 


perfection on a plate


every bite exploded hot sauce and flavour into my mouth.. i will ALWAYS be injecting my wings prior to cooking them from now on!!


Once everyone was full on wings and some dishes were done, it was time to take out the Ribs. they'd been in the foil for just over 2 hours. they ended up being a little TOO tender (which after the last batch, i was fine with. next time i'll cut down the foiling time and also finish them on the grill with a baste).

we didn't even plate these up.. just transferred to the cutting board (where they literally seperated with just the tongs picking them up) and ate from there.



 we went to bed that night with full bellies and a satisfied grin. 

i'm so appreciative for the help and knowledge. i'm really loving my smoker and i can't wait to perfect the art of ribs and wings. 
 
  • Like
Reactions: welshrarebit
Hey Mark

Welcome to the Smoking forum. You’ll find great , friendly people here, all more than willing to answer any question you may have. Just ask and you’ll get about 10 different answers—all right. LOL. Don’t forget to post qviews.

What Gary said to do.

Gary
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Latest posts

Hot Threads

Clicky