Do the cooking times change if you dont foil?

delarosa74868

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Sep 17, 2009

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Seminole, Oklahoma

• Jun 14, 2010

• #1

Just wondering cause Im cooking a bunch of ribs and have to use rib racks.  Seems kinda hard to foil ribs that are standing.

 

richoso1

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• Jun 14, 2010

• #2

I don't think the cooking times should/will change, but the texture and moisture level will.

 

pineywoods

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• Jun 14, 2010

• #3

The times wouldn't really change enough to notice I don't believe

 

Dutch

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• Jun 14, 2010

• #4

delarosa-Rich hit the nail on the head-the time doesn't change but the texture/firmness of the meat will be different.

I used to foil my ribs all the time until one day I grabbed the box of foil to foil up some ribs and found that the roll only had a 4 inch wide strip of foil on it.  Well that wasn't gonna foil 4 slabs of spares.  So I went with out the foil, spritzed the ribs every hour and when I picked up the slab in the middle of the rack with some tongs the meat began to tear at the bend, they were done.  My son-in-law exclaimed that these were my best ribs ever.  The meat had great "tooth" and pulled cleanly away from the bone with just a slight tug once you bit into the meat.  That's the only way that I do my ribs now.

 

forluvofsmoke

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• Jun 14, 2010

• #5

I have found that when using rib racks I need to be sure there is a sufficient gap in between each slab, or the cooking times can increase dramatically.

Also, if you do want to use a 3-2-1 or some variant of this method, you can place the racked slabs of ribs directly into a large baking sheet pan and build a tent with foil. Just add a cup or so of liquids like you would in the foil, and cover/seal it up tightly. My foiled ribs do seem to take less time than w/o foil by about 1 hour when laying flat on the grates. Same happens with large cuts (brisket, butt).

Eric

 

pandemonium

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• Jun 14, 2010

• #6

Dutch said:

delarosa-Rich hit the nail on the head-the time doesn't change but the texture/firmness of the meat will be different.

I used to foil my ribs all the time until one day I grabbed the box of foil to foil up some ribs and found that the roll only had a 4 inch wide strip of foil on it.  Well that wasn't gonna foil 4 slabs of spares.  So I went with out the foil, spritzed the ribs every hour and when I picked up the slab in the middle of the rack with some tongs the meat began to tear at the bend, they were done.  My son-in-law exclaimed that these were my best ribs ever.  The meat had great "tooth" and pulled cleanly away from the bone with just a slight tug once you bit into the meat.  That's the only way that I do my ribs now.

Click to expand...

im with you on that they have the perfect texture and pull imo

 

mballi3011

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• Jun 14, 2010

• #7

No your smoking time shouldn't change enough to notice.

 

rbranstner

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• Jun 14, 2010

• #8

I don't think times change to much on ribs but I think it can help to foil when you have a butt or a brisket and it stuck on that stall or if it is stuck around 165-170 it can help things out a bit. I don't have hard proof that foiling can help out but I sure seem to see that it can help things out. I am a big fan of foiling but some aren't and they come out great either way so its a total preference thing. I foil, butts, brisket and ribs and love the results and if you don't agree that's fine to. That's the beauty of smoking there is more than one way to skin a cat as they say.

 

pandemonium

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• Jun 15, 2010

• #9

mmm smoked cat lol

 

cliffcarter

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• Jun 15, 2010

• #10

You don't need to use the rib rack during the foil phase, just lay the foiled ribs on top of one another if you have to, it won't hurt a thing. My past experience leads me to think that unfoiled ribs may take longer, for instance my BB ribs unfoiled always took about 6 hrs compared to 5 hrs foiled (2-2-1) and spares about 7-8 hrs compared to 6 foiled, but the unfoiled ribs were done on a different cooker than I have now. YMMV.

 

Last edited: Jun 15, 2010