Had to try this! FROZEN RIBS???

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Done. Had a hard time getting 3 down as these where meaty. Did 3 hours at 250. Temp 165. Foiled and 1.5 hours. Temp 195 - 200. Fired up grill and burnt off membrane and set sauce. Used a Strawberry Habanero BBQ sauce got at local BBQ restaurant. These where bite through bone tender. Did not get any smoke ring? I used MES40 with lumber jack hickory pellets mixed with hickory chips. Had decent smoke flavor. These ribs where good just not the prettiest. Normally I would of used the WSM or RecTec for these but wanted to try out new PID controller.

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Looks real good from here Brian. And you're right, they're really meaty, nice work!
 
interesting, a little late to this party Al but they look delicious.

Thanks Jim!
Appreciate it!
Al


Done. Had a hard time getting 3 down as these where meaty. Did 3 hours at 250. Temp 165. Foiled and 1.5 hours. Temp 195 - 200. Fired up grill and burnt off membrane and set sauce. Used a Strawberry Habanero BBQ sauce got at local BBQ restaurant. These where bite through bone tender. Did not get any smoke ring? I used MES40 with lumber jack hickory pellets mixed with hickory chips. Had decent smoke flavor. These ribs where good just not the prettiest. Normally I would of used the WSM or RecTec for these but wanted to try out new PID controller.

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Holy cow those look like pork chops. And they sure look good!
Al
 
These were cheap ribs. They where good and cooked fast enough but strange no smoke ring? I be leaving this MES40 for low temp cooks and holding oven.

Yea, unfortunately with an electric smoker you won’t get a smoke ring. But it doesn’t affect the flavor, so you should be good to go!
Al
 
very interesting, do you know why?

Yes, a smoke ring is caused by the combustion of wood or charcoal. A pure wood fire gives you the largest smoke ring. There are guys on here who can break it down & give you the chemical reaction that takes place when meat is cooked with a wood fire, but I can tell you this from experience. I have owned electric, propane, charcoal, & wood smokers. And you get the best ring with a stick burner, next charcoal/wood. The propane produces a slight ring, but the electric has none. However as I said this is just like putting lipstick on a pig, it may change the way it looks, but it doesn’t change the taste.
Al
 
Yes, a smoke ring is caused by the combustion of wood or charcoal. A pure wood fire gives you the largest smoke ring. There are guys on here who can break it down & give you the chemical reaction that takes place when meat is cooked with a wood fire, but I can tell you this from experience. I have owned electric, propane, charcoal, & wood smokers. And you get the best ring with a stick burner, next charcoal/wood. The propane produces a slight ring, but the electric has none. However as I said this is just like putting lipstick on a pig, it may change the way it looks, but it doesn’t change the taste.
Al
I have never thought about this so I really have no idea what I'm talking about. It is interesting to me because, they all have plenty of smoke in the chamber all generated from the same source, wood. Then there must be that the is caused by something else in the combustion causes the smoke ring and burning more wood has more of whatever causes the smoke ring.

Anyway, thanks for your experience, I appreciate it.
 
Yes, a smoke ring is caused by the combustion of wood or charcoal. A pure wood fire gives you the largest smoke ring. There are guys on here who can break it down & give you the chemical reaction that takes place when meat is cooked with a wood fire, but I can tell you this from experience. I have owned electric, propane, charcoal, & wood smokers. And you get the best ring with a stick burner, next charcoal/wood. The propane produces a slight ring, but the electric has none. However as I said this is just like putting lipstick on a pig, it may change the way it looks, but it doesn’t change the taste.
Al
Thanks for that information Al. Always learning something around here.
 
The smoke ring involves the chemistry of nitric oxide from burning wood combining with myoglobin in meat to form nitrosyl hemochromogen, the same pigment found in cured meats. The reason you don't get a smoke ring with electric smokers is that there isn't enough nitric oxide present in the smoke generated from chips, chunks, pellet tubes, etc to have a meaningful effect on the myoglobin in the meat. But, as Al said, it's mainly an appearance thing.
 
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The smoke ring involves the chemistry of nitric oxide from burning wood combining with myoglobin in meat to form nitrosyl hemochromogen, the same pigment found in cured meats. The reason you don't get a smoke ring with electric smokers is that there isn't enough nitric oxide present in the smoke generated from chips, chunks, pellet tubes, etc to have a meaningful effect on the myoglobin in the meat. But, as Al said, it's mainly an appearance thing.

Thanks for the technical explanation Doug!
Al
 
Yes, a smoke ring is caused by the combustion of wood or charcoal. A pure wood fire gives you the largest smoke ring. There are guys on here who can break it down & give you the chemical reaction that takes place when meat is cooked with a wood fire, but I can tell you this from experience. I have owned electric, propane, charcoal, & wood smokers. And you get the best ring with a stick burner, next charcoal/wood. The propane produces a slight ring, but the electric has none. However as I said this is just like putting lipstick on a pig, it may change the way it looks, but it doesn’t change the taste.
Al
Wow is that great news for me! I have had several different MES smokers and a Traeger. Never could get the smoke ring on anything no matter the combination I tried. I still enjoyed most of my "mistakes".
 
Wow is that great news for me! I have had several different MES smokers and a Traeger. Never could get the smoke ring on anything no matter the combination I tried. I still enjoyed most of my "mistakes".

Well the good news is the smoke ring doesn’t affect the flavor, it just looks cool!
Al
SmokinAl SmokinAl , tried this! Wow, spot on my friend… not sure I’ll ever do ribs any other way! Thank you for posting!

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And as my friend Foam used to say…. We did indeed use the fine china….

Thanks Justin, I’m glad this worked for you too. I just did a rack on Friday night, frozen & got the same exact result. So I’m sure it will work every time, and also with other cuts of meat!
Al
 
Yes you were reading it right, it was about 4 hours total time. I don't know how it is possible to take a piece of meat that was frozen solid & have it cook as fast or faster than a room temp piece! But that is what happened. It may have been that the smoker was running a bit hotter than normal, I really don't pay that much attention to the pit temp anymore, I just let it run wherever it likes to.
Al
 
OK, last night I watched a video on YouTube that did a comparison cook.
They took 3 filet mignons & 1 was room temp, 1 was refrigerated, & 1 was frozen.
They cooked them exactly the same & took them to the same IT. The takeaway was that the frozen steak was more tender & juicy than the other 2, and the room temp steak was a bit dry & chewy. So I thought why not pull out a rack of ribs from Wild Fork Foods that I had in the freezer & put it in the smoker frozen. I thought if this works it would sure be a lot more convenient if you had a spur of the moment idea to smoke something. No thawing out, just fire up the smoker & throw it on right out of the freezer. Now I know your saying that there won’t be any flavor from the rub cause I’m putting it on a frozen piece of meat, but you’d be wrong. There was plenty of flavor! So here we go!!
Here is the rack I have:

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And here it is out of the cryovac, notice these ribs DON'T have that big piece of loin meat on top.


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I put mustard on the ribs, because I thought the S&P wouldn’t stick to frozen meat. And S&P is the only seasoning I used.


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Went on the Lang sitting around 250, with mesquite & hickory splits.


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Two hours in.


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Checked the temp & the IT is around 160 degrees.

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Another few degrees & into the foil they go. It's Valentines Day & Judy likes her ribs FOTB, so today we wrap them.
I'm using a combo of Apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, honey, bbq sauce, and butter.

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OK, meat side down, and since it a cold day down here we decided to do the foil part in the oven, so we could heat the house up.
And yes I left the membrane on, because IMHO, the ribs retain more juices.

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Out of the oven. nice color!

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Now to sauce them & then onto the gasser at around 600 degrees to burn the membrane off & set the sauce.

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All done & ready to slice!

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Man o man, just look at that smoke ring!!
I only had the ribs in the smoker for about 3 hours, so the conclusion that I have come to is the meat takes on a lot more smoke when it's cold.

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Judy said they were the best ribs she has ever had. I agree, they were very good. And there was a noticeable difference in the tenderness & juiciness.
Have at it girl!!

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We ate a few ribs at the cutting board, but finally made up a couple of plates & sat outside to enjoy our Valentines dinner. Judy made our favorite coleslaw, and some handheld cherry pies ( I do like extra icing on mine ) :emoji_sunglasses:

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Well as I have said throughout this thread, I was amazed at how tender, juicy, and what a smoke ring that I got from a totally frozen piece of meat.
I can't wait to try this on some other cuts!!
Thanks for looking guys & I hope you all had as wonderful a Valentines Day as Judy & I did!!
Al
Wow, I read this after a thawed my ribs. I knew I should have jump online first! I will be trying this out. Back at the smoker again after removing a small glitch in my life. The Dog and I are much happier now, I get to smoke more for dinner, she gets to test the tasteing part of cooking, again. Win-win.
Tiburon
 
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