Hammy tasting ribs

[ledfish]

Yesterday I did my second smoke in my smoke hollow propane smoker cooking 2 slabs of ribs. My first smoke yielded ribs that seemed a bit tough for me. So based on the results I developed a game plan for this smoke.

I used a temperature of 250 degrees and was able to easily maintain it through the entire time.

For smoking I used a combination of hickory and apple chips.

I started out with a solo cup (16oz) of each. After an 1 and 15 minutes I added a half of solo cup more of each kind.

After 2.5 hours, I put the ribs in a tinfoil pan with some apple juice and covered it tightly with foil. I put them back in the smoker for about 2.5 more hours. Then slathered them with Sweet Baby Ray's and put them back in the smoker for another 45 minutes(not foiled).

The tenderness was spot on, as my wife said, "perfecto !". Much better than my first attempt.

The one thing I noticed was that they seemed very hammy tasting, maybe a little to much for my liking, but not bad enough to keep me from eating all of mine.

So I was hoping for some advice in understanding how to control the degree of hammyness as I imagine that this is a big issue with ribs.

Does the actually amount of smoking affect this and if so maybe I need to not add more chips after the intitial batch smolders to ashes ?

Thanks in advance for your advise. I look forward to learning from the other members wisdom.

 

[mballi3011]

Now if you did what you said you did there shouldn't have been no reason for the ribs to taste hammy. Now were they marinaded in anything when you bought them.? Did they say that they were seasoned or brined in anything. Now I use hickory and apple alot of times when I smoke and that does do anything. You have me stumped if it wasn't any of the things that I mentioned before.

 

[countrysmoke]

sounds like maybe you had to much salt in your rub, Ive had the same thing happen many times, so I adjusted the salt amount in my rub and they have been spot on since.

 

[ledfish]

Bought them in a sealed package at Wallys World, there were the Tyson brand I believe.

Too much salt in the rub could be. Just starting out so I used an off the shelve rub, McCormick Sweet and Spicy rub.

 

[richoso1]

Now if you did what you said you did there shouldn't have been no reason for the ribs to taste hammy. Now were they marinaded in anything when you bought them.? Did they say that they were seasoned or brined in anything. Now I use hickory and apple alot of times when I smoke and that does do anything. You have me stumped if it wasn't any of the things that I mentioned before.

I share the same thoughts with Mark.
 

 

[ellymae]

Could be too much salt in the rub - how long before you cooked them did you rub them?

The other thing - as mentioned, is the ribs themselves - were they "enhanced" by any chance? It would say it on the packaging.

 

[DanMcG]

How much of a smoke ring did they have?  The more ring, the more cured they got and the the more  they will taste hammy, which ain't a bad thing. but where's the Pic's...

glad ya enjoyed them. The nice thing about this hobby is even the mistakes taste good

 

[meateater]

Sounds like you actually had ribs taste like there suppose to. Most restaurant ribs are boiled and grilled

 so the taste of real BBQ shocks most folks. If you can post up some qview that would help us out in a answer.

 

[ledfish]

Ellymae - Actually rubbed them about 1/2 hour before putting them on. Was a little short on prep time this go around

Dan McG - They were pretty much pink all the way to the bone. I was thinking like you said, more ring, more cured and thats why I was wonder if two hours worth of smoke was way too much. They did taste good though.

Meateater - That is very true and a thought I had. The only time I've had ribs that have been smoked is in a restaurant here in the north and that's not really representative.

All - Unfortunately, no pics on this one, I wanted to be careful about what I was doing and not how to take a good picture. Plus by the time I felt there where done it was 8:30pm and by 8:45, all the ribs were gone. There was just three of us, but those ribs got scarfed so fast you would have thought we had all been starving for days beforehand.

 

[SmokinAl]

If they went that fast they must have been pretty good.

 

[sqwib]

To date I have been fortunate enough to avoid the Hammy problem.

I also use Sweet Baby Rays as a finishing sauce.

The only thing I would do differently would be

Make your own rub next time

Rub and wrap at least overnight.

Skip the apple juice just foil.

And as others have said possibly too much smoke