Beef spare ribs on MES30

[scrumtiousruckingBBQ]

Hey beefers,
Just did my first beef smoke today. I’ve been smoking meat for about a year and have only done pork and chicken, so this was a new adventure for me.

Picked up 8lbs of beef ribs from a local butcher and dry brined them for about 16 hours in the fridge.

This morning I rubbed them down with Meat Head’s Big Bad Beef Rub and put them in the freezer for 45 minutes while I got the smoker set up

I have a Masterbuilt electric smoker that I got for free from a neighbor, and I’ve added a mailbox mod to it so I can mess with my pellet tray without opening the main door and losing all the painfully hard-won heat from its dinky little heating element. Today I used the water tray, which I normally just use as a drip pan. I also tried something new to try to get a smoke ring on these things, as I have yet to be able to get a smoke ring on any of my cooks so far. I loaded my pellet tray halfway up with pellets, and topped them off with oak chips.

Additionally, I lit some charcoal briquettes in a small aluminum tray and put them in the mailbox once they were ashy and white. The idea here was that charcoal briquettes supposedly put off more NO than wood chips or pellets, so I hoped the burning briquettes would help me get a smoke ring. More on that later…

The 8lbs of ribs came from two 4lb racks that I asked the butcher to split in two, giving me 4 two-bone slabs. 2 of the 4 slabs had a very thick fat cap that tapered from one end to the other, so those two slabs had about 2 inches of meat on one end and about 3/4 of an inch of meat on the other once I trimmed off the fat cap. The other two slabs were pretty uniformely thick, about 2 inches thick from end to end.

I split the slabs up to have one tapered slab and one uniform slab on each rack, using the top two racks of my smoker. I had a MEATER probe in one of the uniform slabs, and two wired probes in the other uniform slab and one of the tapered ones.

All three slabs finished at different times, with drastic differences in time for most of them. The first slab was done in 6:30. Here it is:

As you can see, it has beautiful bark on it. Better bark than I’ve ever got with ribs or pork butt. This cooked for as long as my ribs usually do, and I owe the great bark to two factors:
1) I lit my pellet tray from both ends this time, so I had a higher volume of smoke (and had to refill the pellet tray at the 6 hour mark, which was no big deal thanks to the mailbox)
2) I had moist air in the smoker box from the water pan. With ribs, I would spritz every 30 minutes after the first 90 on the smoke, but this was really killing me on time due to the inability of the smoker to keep temp after the door had been opened

I was disappointed not to see a smoke ring, but had hoped for the other three slabs. This slab was tasty, with fantastic bark and a nice juicy bite through most of the rib. The thinner end was a bit over cooked, but that’s no surprise.

The second slab came off at 7:45. Here it is:

Again, beautiful bark. Delicious taste, and great texture. But no smoke ring (or is the WHOLE THING smoke ring?!)

Third came off at 9:00 on the nose. The next rack was only a few minutes behind, so I wrapped this one in foil and threw it in a faux chambro (room temp cooler filled with towels).
Here’s how it looked after a 30 minute rest in the chambro:

Juicy and delicious.

Last but not least, #4 came off at 9:20. This guy got wrapped in foil to rest on the cutting board for 10 minutes. Here it is:

Very tasty, but noticeably less juicy than #3 that rested in the faux chambro.

Take aways:
1) beef is yummy
2) water pan and/or more smoke makes for delicious bark
3) faux chambro works as advertised

Questions:
1) Why were the cook times so drastically different? The first one done was on the lower of the two racks, but the second one done was on the top rack. First one was thinner on one end, but the second one was uniform all the way through. Another uniform one and tapered one took nearly three hours longer to cook
2) Why is my meat pink all the way through? It almost looks cured like corned beef. Did I over do it with the briquettes and the heavy smoke to start the cook? Did having it in the freezer before had make the meat so cold that the NO was able to penetrate all the way through before the meat reached that magical no-more-pink temperature?
3) Why does my cooking taste so GD good all the time and make my wife and kids so happy?
4) When will I stop impulse buying BBQ gear on Amazon?

Hope you enjoyed the short novel and the pictures. Looking forward to any advice folks can give on my questions (or even better, advice on something I could have done better that I didn’t even ask about)

 

[02ebz06]

Now that's some good eats! Nicely done!

 

[JLeonard]

4) When will I stop impulse buying BBQ gear on Amazon?

First off.....Those are some great looking ribs. Would have been a great TD entry. I'd be happy to sit down to a plate of them.

Secondly, in answer to the above question. You have fallen into the rabbit hole of smoking meat. Lots of cool toys out there to try. And we, as a group, are a bunch of enablers that are more than happy to show off our toys and put ideas into your head. I myself fell into that rabbit hole. Now, I am not complaining in the least. My skills have elevated so much over the 3 yrs I've been on here. And it is totally due to these folks on here. I've learned so much from them. Now, having said that.....Have you seen on Amazon.....

Jim

 

[JIMSMOKES]

Mmm! Beef ribs my favorite.

 

[smokerjim]

They look good, do you rotate your meat through the cook, my mes has different temps from top to bottom and left and right, is there a reason you put them in the freezer before smoking, I'm just curious.

 

[scrumtiousruckingBBQ]

They look good, do you rotate your meat through the cook, my mes has different temps from top to bottom and left and right, is there a reason you put them in the freezer before smoking, I'm just curious.

Ah, no i didn’t rotate them. I try not to open my MES during a cook if I can avoid it.

I was under the impression that the colder the meat is when you put it in, the better chances of getting a smoke ring based on…like…science stuff…? Essentially the principle that the meat will lose its ability to turn pink once it hits 140 or 170 degrees, depending on who you ask. Maybe that’s why some of my slabs were pink all the way through?

 

[smokerjim]

I dont know the whole scientific stuff behind smoke rings , I know it has to do something with combustion. Electric smokers generally wont produce a smoke ring, did you ever try adding a pinch of cure # 1 with your rub and let it sit on the meat for an hour or two before smoking, I know it's not a true smoke ring but no will know but you.

 

[scrumtiousruckingBBQ]

I dont know the whole scientific stuff behind smoke rings , I know it has to do something with combustion. Electric smokers generally wont produce a smoke ring, did you ever try adding a pinch of cure # 1 with your rub and let it sit on the meat for an hour or two before smoking, I know it's not a true smoke ring but no will know but you.

I thought about using cure #1 but it feels like cheating! I know the smoke ring is a dumb thing to obsess over since it doesn’t change the taste of the meat, but I’m obsessed either way!

The science is that when Nitric Oxide (NO) interacts with myoglobin (the juice inside the meat), it locks in the myoglobin’s pink color. Once myoglobin is heated above 140-170 degrees, it turns brown or gray. The more NO you expose the meat to before it reaches an IT of 140, the better smoke ring you’ll get.

You’re dead on with the lack of combustion being the problem. Smoldering chips and pellets don’t put off enough NO to make a difference. Briquettes put off a bunch, but I probably didn’t have enough briquettes, and the few I had probably weren’t burning hot enough.

On my next smoke I’m going to get some briquettes really roaring, and put them in the mailbox in a steel grill pan. I’ll give them 30-45 minutes and then put the smoke on. Hopefully I don’t melt the mailbox….

 

[smokerjim]

I thought about using cure #1 but it feels like cheating! I know the smoke ring is a dumb thing to obsess over since it doesn’t change the taste of the meat, but I’m obsessed either way!

The science is that when Nitric Oxide (NO) interacts with myoglobin (the juice inside the meat), it locks in the myoglobin’s pink color. Once myoglobin is heated above 140-170 degrees, it turns brown or gray. The more NO you expose the meat to before it reaches an IT of 140, the better smoke ring you’ll get.

You’re dead on with the lack of combustion being the problem. Smoldering chips and pellets don’t put off enough NO to make a difference. Briquettes put off a bunch, but I probably didn’t have enough briquettes, and the few I had probably weren’t burning hot enough.

On my next smoke I’m going to get some briquettes really roaring, and put them in the mailbox in a steel grill pan. I’ll give them 30-45 minutes and then put the smoke on. Hopefully I don’t melt the mailbox….

Just watch if your box is galvanized, not sure how hot it has to get before it will start giving off bad gasses

 

[normanaj]

Everything looks awesome!

You may want to consider adding a PID controller. It'll turn that MES into an absolutely awesome smoker that'll hold temps +/- 1 degree of set temp.