Meat Cooking Too Fast

I would suggest not temp probing ribs...  Your problem may be that the probe is either protruding somewhere and is reading the heat in the cooking chamber.  

What type of ribs are they?  Baby backs, St. Louis, or Spares?  I'd keep them cooking as they are for another hour if BBs and another 2 hours if Spares, and then put them in foil (at that point it would be 2 or 3 hrs into the cook).  Keep them in foil for another 2 hours and continue to check to see if the meat pulls back from the bones a little and check to see how pliable and tender the meat is.  Once you are comfortable with the tenderness of the meat, you can put them back into the smoker bare and let the bark / outside of the meat firm back up.  At that point you can glaze on some sauce.

You'll know when the ribs are done when they feel like you can pull the meat off the bone.

Also, even though I said check the meat for tenderness, try not to open the door as much as you can.  This will make you lose heat and will prolong the cooking time.

Lastly, my suggestion for next time is to get a better thermometer for your smoker to know for sure what temperature you are cooking at.  The stock therms on smokers are usually not that reliable.   A good one to get is the electronic maverick therm, which has both a cooking chamber probe and a meat probe.

Probes in ribs is a no-go for the most part and unnecessary. The probes often touch the bones which get pretty hot. 

As mentioned, a quality thermometer is paramount for smoking with any smoker, high end or low end. Mavericks seem to be the thermometer of choice for most. Dual probe so you can have one for the smoker and one in the meat (not ribs of course). Getting a good thermometer will let you know if your smoking is indeed reaching desired temps as well as what the temp swings are. Don't rely not he thermometer on the smoker. 

As for ribs, I almost always to baby backs because that's what the family demands. I find mine get done in less that 4 hours. I smoke em at 225 or 240 depending on when I need them done. At 240 they get done at about 3 hours or so and at 225 a little over 4 hours sometimes. I never foil. I like them just before falling off the bone. St. Louis will obviously take longer and spares even longer. Once you do ribs a few times you will be able to look at them and tell if they are done to your liking. Until then, don't be afraid to cut into them to see. Heck, your gonna cut em up anyway. 

Redz said:

this is exactly what i was looking for, great Advice from good ppl thanks everyone for the feed back, the ribs were great, better than the ones i did yesterday they completely dried out.....next step pork butt or brisket not sure yet!!!!

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Next time you do more than one rack of ribs try foiling some and not others. Spritz some and not others Or digging in to some at say 4 .5 hours and the others at 5.5 hours. It's all prt of the fun.

I think Butts are terrific in just about any smoker. They are just fabulous and forgiving and delicious. Only rule if you wanna pull em is to take the IT to 205(give or take a degree).

Brisket can be a fickle beast. Read up on this site and give yourself lots of time. But alas man does have dominion over beast and good eats can be had.