New smoker, mystified by the temp progression

[Ultradianguy]

Hi - So up until now, I've done my smoking on a gas grill, kept as low as I could . It's gone reasonably well. I just bought a camp chef smoke vault 24 and today was the first cook. One rack of baby back ribs. Started at 2:30 pm, kept temp between 250 - 275 most of the time. I monitored smoker temp with a thermoworks smoke, placed on the same shelf as the ribs. After 3.5 hours, temp in the thickest part of the ribs was still under 160 deg, which seemed very slow for a single rack of ribs. I ended up raising the temp as high as 325 to move things along, and then back down again to around 300deg. After 5 hours, the ribs in the middle were still only at 168, though the ribs on both ends were close to 190deg. (I confirmed temps with a thermapen instant read in case the probe was shot).

I just brought them in and will find out soon what's going on. Does this make sense ? If this were spare ribs at 225, I'd certainly expect a long time - but baby backs have never taken me this long before. Does a smoker with a water tray cook very differently even if the temp is the same compared to a grill?

Thanks!
Michael

 

[tag0401]

Is it possible your smoker temp reading was off. I know you said you verified the meat temp with a second therm, what did you do to verify your chamber temp was right?

 

[Chasdev]

I've run into the same thing, the ends cook faster than the middle sometimes.
Now I wrap in foil after two hours and unwrap after around two hours later depending on how big the racks are.
Also, I try to buy the lightest weight rib racks I can find, they seem to cook faster and come out more tender than the heavy ones.