Ribs and Tri Tip

[ddave]

Had some people coming over on yesterday. Did a couple of tri tips with Pappy's on then and a rack of babybacks with Rich's rub. The tri tip cooked a lot faster than I expected it to. My wife doesn't like heavy smoke flavor on the tris so I usually just use straight Kingsford Comp in the UDS. But this time I snuck in a couple of chunks of cherry at the very outside of the charcoal basket.

Had the temp a little higher (around 300° I suppose) and went to put the temp probes in them after about an hour and they were DONE. Double checked with the Thermapen and sure enough, they were around 145ish. I wanted to catch them a little earlier, but oh well. Foiled and into a cooler they went for a bit.

Didn't get any prep or cooking pics but I did get one pic after my wife and her sister sliced them up.



(My wife's sister thinks I am nuts now, by the way. )

Along with the tri tip, I wanted a rack of ribs. Still experimenting a bit so this time was trying it with no foil, sprayed with AJ/Jim Beam every hour and smoked with apple on the SnP.

Here's a picture of the lonely rack at about 4 hours in.



and here's the rack after I pulled it off . . .



and sliced.



Ribs were pretty good although not as tender as I usually get foiling. Tri tip was awesome.

But the best thing about this smoke, was that I wasn't trying so hard to maintain such a tight range in temps. I just got each smoker settled in and let them roll. No chasing temps, no stressing if the temps creeped up a bit . . . it was GREAT! Just enjoyed the day with the kids, popped in and out of the pool several times and some great food for dinner.

Thanks for looking.

Dave

 

[coachin&smokin]

The less stressful cooks are the way to go, it's much more enjoyable.

I just discovered tri-tip this summer and have to say it's one of my favorites. I can only find it at Sam's Club here in KY and it's usually about 12 bucks for 2.5 pounds. A little pricey but worth it every now and then. I actually have some tri-tip steaks thawing for dinner tonight. Everything looks good DDave.

 

[ronp]

Looks good Dave.

 

[fire it up]

Sounds like one of those wonderful days where life is good. Glad the food turned out great and the family was having a good time.

 

[rivet]

You know Dave, I'm glad you posted that. Glad to know it isn't just me. Never been a "temp-hound" nor a "particulars" kid of person. Let the fluctuations happen and roll with the flow, man!

Too many folks get too uptight about the barbecue smoking thing.

 

[ddave]

Yep, I'd been following a thread on another forum about cooking at higher temperatures, say from 270° or so up to the 325° range. Other people had mentioned that sometimes they do that to save time, others said they have done it "accidentally" with no catastophic damage done to the meat.

I'm not really worried too much about the time issue, but often I'd freak out if the temp got to (GASP) 251°. But there had been occasions when the drum sneaked away from me and I was cooking ribs at 280° or so. Stressed about it the whole time but as I look back, the ribs weren't still pretty good.

Since we're cooking to finish meat temp anyway, or texture as is the case with ribs, it is not that big a deal in my mind if the cooker is at 225°, 250°, 270° or even a little higher than that if you're comfortable with it.

Sure makes the smoke more relaxing and enjoyable to my mind when you're not chasing temps all day long.

Dave