- Jun 28, 2015
- 483
- 296
That's right, the bullying continues :(:(
I wanted to do beef ribs one last time this summer, only thing at Costco were Boneless Beef Ribs. Didn't take me long on my favorite smoking forum to discover I had let my Arch Nemesis Chucky sneak in the back door.
I got a late start Sunday, I have been battling a real bad case of cellulitis, that sent me to the ER both Thursday and Friday night, so I was hobbling around and moving slow. I am sure Chucky had something to do with the cellulitis, I am pretty sure he is colluding with the Russians at this point, and we know poisoning is their specialty!
Anyway for those that haven't had the misfortune to find out Boneless beef ribs, just like their pork counter parts (the infamous Country Style Rib), are really just a marketing ploy and a mystery cut, and certainly not a rib. There is no standardization and they can come from anywhere, but the most common form in most areas is just a Chuck sliced into 2 inch strips, just like CSR are a butt sliced into strips. It saddens me that Rib at the meat market doesn't have to mean rib, anymore than unlimited at the cellphone store has to mean unlimited, but I digress.
I decided to combine my real Beef Rib process and Bears Chuck method and tame the might beast. So I put a rack in my foil pan (actually two pans to fit them all), gave the "ribs" a good wet down with whoosy sauce, then applied my SLPOG rub (same as SPOG but half the pepper comes from Lemon Pepper).
Mistake #1, for some reason I thought I was suppose to start with liquid in the pan (broth + some whoosy sauce), but after rereading both my own notes and bears stuff, I not sure where I got that from, liquid goes in when you cover the pans later. I don't think this effected the smoke much other than preventing bark on the underside of the "ribs" Anyway I filled the pans so the liquid was just below the racks so the "ribs" were not sitting in liquid.
It was 4pm when I finally put the pans in the smoker, but I need to digress a bit and talk about the smoker setup. I understand this is long winded and if you have to go now, I get it, but my theorist says I have to write my feeling about Chucky down or we will never resolve our issues.
I got a chance to speak with Mark Hillman from American Barbecue Systems, and he sent me the diverter plate, for the firebox on the All-Star to I can do the snake, maze, minnion, or whatever the kids are calling it today. Great guy, great smokers. He gave me lots of tips on how to setup the smoker and said I should be able to get 6-7 hours (depending on lots of factors of course) out of a full load @225. So I setup my maze with a few chunks buried along the way.
Mark mentioned that folks have report issues with both sides lighting, and suggested I cover the second side with foil and remove it once the fire had made its way to the turn of the maze. So that's what I did.
But wait, what the heck is that chuck of apple sitting there. Well I am still experimenting and dialing in this smoker, and I have seen plenty of vidoes etc, where guys set a block away from the fire to let it do a slow smolder, and I wanted to see how that would work for me. Wasn't like I was worried about running the "ribs" I knew Chucky was probably going to kick my ass anyway. (Can you tell he's already broken my spirit, therapist say I really need to work on that).
Well the issue of do you get to much white/bad smoke from this approach is a discussion for another thread, and I don't write long meandering post. :rolleyes: But there is something else wrong with this approach that those of you playing with a full deck might have already caught.... When you sit a hot smoldering huck of wood, on top of a double layer of foil, it will eventually burn through, igniting the briquettes underneath.
So I ended up with both sides of the maze lit. Good news is I was still able to maintain a 240-250 fire for 6 hours!, So I am looking forward to my next attempt with the diverter and seeing what I can do at 225-230, when I don't pull a bone headed move.
3 1/2 hours in the Rib's had a good bark going, and were hitting 160. So I covered the pans with foil.
And here's the point in the story where Chucky real starts to get the better of me. It only took them 1 1/2 hours to reach 200. I checked them and they were still tough as an Alabama linebacker.
Mistake #2 I pulled the foil, to set the bark reset, while they "continue" to cook for a bit and get tender. The temperature plummeted like a meteor, and dropped back all the way to the 160's.
About this same time, my bonehead move with the maze reared its ugly head and I started losing smoker temp. So for the next 2 hours the temp was somewhere between 200-260, as I stumbled around and figured out how to half reload a maze, add some lit briquettes to recover the temps, realize I didn't have anything for moving lit charcoal around the firebox other than my teppanyaki spatula, good news is my knuckles cooked to a nice tender IT!
The firebox side of the All-Star had a date with some lamb chops for when our son got home from a double at 11pm, the ribs had climbed back into the 190's, and I decided to take advantage of the All-stars dual capability, to smoke and grill at same time. I closed down the damper between the firebox and the smoker box, used a couple of pairs of pliers to pull the diverter plate, spread out the remaining coals (reheating my knuckles to get them extra tender), added a few chucks of cherry and put the grill grate on it.
This keep the smoke box between 180-200, in retrospect I should have opened the damper between the two a touch and keep the smoker temp higher, but I was tired, the only thing that hurt more than my knuckles was my leg. I knew Chucky had won once more, and I was looking for the white towel. If you just can't get enough of my ramblings you can read about the lamb/grilling side of the night in this post.
After getting the lamb in the house for our son, I at least had that timed within 5 minutes! I brought the two pans of "ribs" in, most of them were tough, a few were just beginning to get tender.
I defatted the juice in my fancy new OXO defatter, and got 1 quart of beautiful clear smoked beef nectar. I tossed all the ribs in one pan, cover it, shoved it in the fridge, and went to cry in my pillow for the night.
Last night, I put the "ribs" in our crock with that quart of beef nectar, and let them high simmer for a couple of hours.
We had them with some Scalloped potatoes, which came from the box, I actually did them in the smoker Sunday night, with the "ribs" but left them out of the story for brevity ;). Added some green beans, and the magic ingredient that can save any meal a few Hawaiian rolls.
The end result was a good meal, great beefy, smoky flavor, tender and juicy, And the bark actually held up well to the crock. These had strong beef flavor than any Chucky I have done in the smoker, it really was close to that Rib profile in flavor. The were marked as Prime. But in the end I had a hard time enjoying my meal, as I knew that I am Chucky's whipping boy, and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.
Prologue: I think if I left the liquid out until foiling, and kept them covered until tender, I might have stood a fighting chance. But that is probably just optimistic thinking and Chucky trying to draw me back into the ring once more.
I wanted to do beef ribs one last time this summer, only thing at Costco were Boneless Beef Ribs. Didn't take me long on my favorite smoking forum to discover I had let my Arch Nemesis Chucky sneak in the back door.
I got a late start Sunday, I have been battling a real bad case of cellulitis, that sent me to the ER both Thursday and Friday night, so I was hobbling around and moving slow. I am sure Chucky had something to do with the cellulitis, I am pretty sure he is colluding with the Russians at this point, and we know poisoning is their specialty!
Anyway for those that haven't had the misfortune to find out Boneless beef ribs, just like their pork counter parts (the infamous Country Style Rib), are really just a marketing ploy and a mystery cut, and certainly not a rib. There is no standardization and they can come from anywhere, but the most common form in most areas is just a Chuck sliced into 2 inch strips, just like CSR are a butt sliced into strips. It saddens me that Rib at the meat market doesn't have to mean rib, anymore than unlimited at the cellphone store has to mean unlimited, but I digress.
I decided to combine my real Beef Rib process and Bears Chuck method and tame the might beast. So I put a rack in my foil pan (actually two pans to fit them all), gave the "ribs" a good wet down with whoosy sauce, then applied my SLPOG rub (same as SPOG but half the pepper comes from Lemon Pepper).
Mistake #1, for some reason I thought I was suppose to start with liquid in the pan (broth + some whoosy sauce), but after rereading both my own notes and bears stuff, I not sure where I got that from, liquid goes in when you cover the pans later. I don't think this effected the smoke much other than preventing bark on the underside of the "ribs" Anyway I filled the pans so the liquid was just below the racks so the "ribs" were not sitting in liquid.
It was 4pm when I finally put the pans in the smoker, but I need to digress a bit and talk about the smoker setup. I understand this is long winded and if you have to go now, I get it, but my theorist says I have to write my feeling about Chucky down or we will never resolve our issues.
I got a chance to speak with Mark Hillman from American Barbecue Systems, and he sent me the diverter plate, for the firebox on the All-Star to I can do the snake, maze, minnion, or whatever the kids are calling it today. Great guy, great smokers. He gave me lots of tips on how to setup the smoker and said I should be able to get 6-7 hours (depending on lots of factors of course) out of a full load @225. So I setup my maze with a few chunks buried along the way.
Mark mentioned that folks have report issues with both sides lighting, and suggested I cover the second side with foil and remove it once the fire had made its way to the turn of the maze. So that's what I did.
But wait, what the heck is that chuck of apple sitting there. Well I am still experimenting and dialing in this smoker, and I have seen plenty of vidoes etc, where guys set a block away from the fire to let it do a slow smolder, and I wanted to see how that would work for me. Wasn't like I was worried about running the "ribs" I knew Chucky was probably going to kick my ass anyway. (Can you tell he's already broken my spirit, therapist say I really need to work on that).
Well the issue of do you get to much white/bad smoke from this approach is a discussion for another thread, and I don't write long meandering post. :rolleyes: But there is something else wrong with this approach that those of you playing with a full deck might have already caught.... When you sit a hot smoldering huck of wood, on top of a double layer of foil, it will eventually burn through, igniting the briquettes underneath.
So I ended up with both sides of the maze lit. Good news is I was still able to maintain a 240-250 fire for 6 hours!, So I am looking forward to my next attempt with the diverter and seeing what I can do at 225-230, when I don't pull a bone headed move.
3 1/2 hours in the Rib's had a good bark going, and were hitting 160. So I covered the pans with foil.
And here's the point in the story where Chucky real starts to get the better of me. It only took them 1 1/2 hours to reach 200. I checked them and they were still tough as an Alabama linebacker.
Mistake #2 I pulled the foil, to set the bark reset, while they "continue" to cook for a bit and get tender. The temperature plummeted like a meteor, and dropped back all the way to the 160's.
About this same time, my bonehead move with the maze reared its ugly head and I started losing smoker temp. So for the next 2 hours the temp was somewhere between 200-260, as I stumbled around and figured out how to half reload a maze, add some lit briquettes to recover the temps, realize I didn't have anything for moving lit charcoal around the firebox other than my teppanyaki spatula, good news is my knuckles cooked to a nice tender IT!
The firebox side of the All-Star had a date with some lamb chops for when our son got home from a double at 11pm, the ribs had climbed back into the 190's, and I decided to take advantage of the All-stars dual capability, to smoke and grill at same time. I closed down the damper between the firebox and the smoker box, used a couple of pairs of pliers to pull the diverter plate, spread out the remaining coals (reheating my knuckles to get them extra tender), added a few chucks of cherry and put the grill grate on it.
This keep the smoke box between 180-200, in retrospect I should have opened the damper between the two a touch and keep the smoker temp higher, but I was tired, the only thing that hurt more than my knuckles was my leg. I knew Chucky had won once more, and I was looking for the white towel. If you just can't get enough of my ramblings you can read about the lamb/grilling side of the night in this post.
After getting the lamb in the house for our son, I at least had that timed within 5 minutes! I brought the two pans of "ribs" in, most of them were tough, a few were just beginning to get tender.
I defatted the juice in my fancy new OXO defatter, and got 1 quart of beautiful clear smoked beef nectar. I tossed all the ribs in one pan, cover it, shoved it in the fridge, and went to cry in my pillow for the night.
Last night, I put the "ribs" in our crock with that quart of beef nectar, and let them high simmer for a couple of hours.
We had them with some Scalloped potatoes, which came from the box, I actually did them in the smoker Sunday night, with the "ribs" but left them out of the story for brevity ;). Added some green beans, and the magic ingredient that can save any meal a few Hawaiian rolls.
The end result was a good meal, great beefy, smoky flavor, tender and juicy, And the bark actually held up well to the crock. These had strong beef flavor than any Chucky I have done in the smoker, it really was close to that Rib profile in flavor. The were marked as Prime. But in the end I had a hard time enjoying my meal, as I knew that I am Chucky's whipping boy, and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.
Prologue: I think if I left the liquid out until foiling, and kept them covered until tender, I might have stood a fighting chance. But that is probably just optimistic thinking and Chucky trying to draw me back into the ring once more.
