First Baby Back Ribs cook with some questions

[Nefarious]

First, I have a Smoke Vault 18. I bought some costco baby back ribs to cook in the rain yesterday. I attempted.to use the 3 1 1 method for an almost fall off the bone texture. I had to cut 3 bones off of the end of each rack to fit them in and I put 2 on the 2nd rack from the bottom and 1 on the 4th rack. I put a thermo on each rack in the center in the column between the ribs. The ribs came out well, in my opinion they were more done then I wanted and maybe a little too smoke.

Some Questions, this is the first time I have smoked for this long.

I put the ribs on two racks with a large space between them, the temperature difference between the two rack was sometimes greater then 10°. I did this so smoke would be able to wrap around all of the ribs evenly. Would it have been better to have them closer together for more even heat over the length of the cook?

A bigger issue is that I had to open the door every 30 minutes to either mix the wood on the half hour mark or add new wood on the hour mark. It takes about 15 minutes to come back up to temperature after.I close.the door. To accommodate for this, I remember chef jimmyj sayin something like if your looking you aint cooking, so I added an extra hour to the smoke interval?

This change made the smoke 4 1 1 and maybe contributed to the more smokey then I wanted. I am.still using chips, maybe I should start using chunks. I took the ribs out at IT 195° and it took most of the allotted hour to get there so I dont think the extra hour in the smoke caused the ribs to be cooked too high.

Any suggestions on how best to deal with the door being opened too often would be appreciated.

 

[thirdeye]

5 minutes ago was the first time I've ever looked at the kind of smoker you have, so maybe some other owners will have hands-on feed back. A 10° temp swing inside any smoker is awesome. Most have hot spots that take some time to learn, so I think your spacing strategy on the ribs is fine.

There is bound to be a way to avoid opening the smoker so frequently to stir or add new flavor wood. Maybe larger chips, or a mix of chips and pellets? You don't need a lot of smoke, and you don't need constant smoke. How do the operating instructions discuss the frequency of adding flavor wood?

 

[SmokinAl]

I have a Smoke vault too, although mine is a 24.
But it recovers right away when I open the door.
What temp were you smoking at?
Al

 

[schlotz]

Measure rib temps is a difficult task to get an accurate reading but it can be done. Keeping them spaced like you did is fine. No indication of how greater that 10º between racks but 10-20º or so really should not have been a problem. Having to open the chamber to feed wood is not ideal. If the vault can work with chunks I certainly would be doing it to lessen the amount of opening.

 

[Nefarious]

I have a Smoke vault too, although mine is a 24.
But it recovers right away when I open the door.
What temp were you smoking at?
Al

I was trying to cook at 225. Most of the time the thermo's read 220ish and 230ish. Maybe I am leaving the door open too long? I'm still getting accustomed to the process.

 

[sandyut]

you may try not wrapping them next time too. I dont wrap anything. More smoke, less hassles, great product.

 

[schlotz]

Good point by sandyut , I stopped wrapping years ago. Way to much fussing and still get great results. I do however run mine a bit hotter, ie ~245º.

 

[Nefarious]

you may try not wrapping them next time too. I dont wrap anything. More smoke, less hassles, great product.

thats sounds promising, the effort is large to get it to all fit in my little smoker and then it all just gets tossed. Very wasteful. Net time I will do two rib racks on same shelf, and I'm going to start using chunks.

Thanks for all of your help.

 

[sandyut]

post up the next round. I do mine at 250 straight through till the IT is about 195. Not totally FOB. if you like them more FOB go a touch higher.

Its way easier! U started on a 14" WSM and started with the standard 3-2-1 for St louis ribs. major ordeal to get 2 racks cut and in the rib rack, then to have to pull them out and foil and unfoil. Mess waste and massive heat loss. skip all that crap and make it easy and tasty

 

[unclebubbas bbq]

I started on a gas smoker like yours, you are going to need to learn just how much wood is too much. Nothing wrong with the 321 method but you also need to go by texture. Once the bark has a chance to set then you can wrap it. Wrapping also keeps it from getting "too much" smoke. You can test if the bark has set just by touching it, if the rub comes off on you finger that it not set yet

 

[Nefarious]

post up the next round. I do mine at 250 straight through till the IT is about 195. Not totally FOB. if you like them more FOB go a touch higher.

It might be a while until i go again, it seems.to have rained more in the past month then in any year since I can remember here.

 

[BB-que]

post up the next round. I do mine at 250 straight through till the IT is about 195. Not totally FOB. if you like them more FOB go a touch higher.

Its way easier! U started on a 14" WSM and started with the standard 3-2-1 for St louis ribs. major ordeal to get 2 racks cut and in the rib rack, then to have to pull them out and foil and unfoil. Mess waste and massive heat loss. skip all that crap and make it easy and tasty

Curious how long an avg size rib takes with this method?

 

[sandyut]

usually about 5 hours, sometime 6 hours.