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Pork Ribs -- Baby Back and Spare


tommy

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Or, perhaps these are just from way bigger cows that have bigger baby backs?

Pork ribs are from Pigs!!! Sorry, I couldnt resist :rolleyes:

My slip of the tongue was unintential, but the ribs looked so different from what I normally cook. Ribs are on the menu for next week, so I'll make sure and take a picture of them out of the package, before I do anthing to them. The ribs that infernoo showed seem much redder in color, and much more trimmed, and not just in terms of fat. My slaps are not so rectangular.

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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Really? I thought mine appeared MUCH more pale than the ones in the photos...

My ribs:

gallery_22943_4728_672364.jpg

Ribs taken from virtualweberbullet.com:

spare13.jpg

Yours are right out of the cyro, and the one from the bullet site have been in the air for a while, which makes them appear darker. When I take ribs out of cyro they look very much like yours in color. Are hogs fed and raised and butchered differently in your country and North America? I dunno, but that is a possibility. I agree with Arne that your first bunch seemed overcooked. I do not have a convection oven and can't comment on that. The smoke convection in the WSM is a natural one, nor fan driven like a convction oven. Not sure if that is a good analogy.

I like the virtualbullet site as well, but I think some folks there are way too analytical. Smoking logs and all that stuff are not for me. Cook em up, and eat em up. You will find your way to make them the way you like.

As to the use of foil, I have done both. I know that lots of competition smokers use foil. I have found that if I am not in a hurry they finish fine one the smoker. I do like to give them just a few minutes on the hot grill to crisp up before service

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  • 3 weeks later...

Have been doing some rib research on eGullet and thought I'd ask a question of the experts here.

I have no smoker or BBQ grill at the moment so I want to experiment using indoor equipment.

I was planning on -

1. A short brine for the loin ribs

2. Cooking sous vide at 170F for one hour

3. Removing from sous vide bag and putting on some of =Mark's sauce (mentioned upthread).

4. Finish off under the grill in my oven (think it is called broiler in the US).

Do you think this will work? Could I add some of Klinks rub first prior to sous viding or would that be too overpowering? Remembering that Sous Vide really exagerates whatever flavours are in the bag.

I know that this will never be as good as a proper smoker setup or a long slow cook but I would like to try a compromise method.

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Why sous vide?

Hi Chris,

My thinking is - keeps em moist, keeps em tender, doesn't dilute flavour like when they are boiled, possibly chance to add flavour in the sous vide stage, not time critical.

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Why sous vide?

Hi Chris,

My thinking is - keeps em moist, keeps em tender, doesn't dilute flavour like when they are boiled, possibly chance to add flavour in the sous vide stage, not time critical.

You might want to take a look at this post from IdeasInFood:

http://ideasinfood.typepad.com/ideas_in_fo..._hour_ribs.html

I don't see any reason not to do it in an immersion circulator versus an oven, if that's available to you.

Personally, I'm going to try this and finish cooking in a Cameron stovetop smoker, to get some more flavor.

---

al wang

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Thanks Al - that looks spot on. I think I will try their method with a rub then Sous Vide and finish under the grill. I will use =Marks recipe for the finishing sauce as it seems to get rave reviews.

I wish I had a smoker. Eventually I want to try to make my own but that is someways off. I wonder if I could add a tiny little amount of hickory smoke powder to the rub prior to the SV in order to get a little smoke flavour.

Edited by joesan (log)
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Thanks Al - that looks spot on. I think I will try their method with a rub then Sous Vide and finish under the grill. I will use =Marks recipe for the finishing sauce as it seems to get rave reviews.

I wish I had a smoker. Eventually I want to try to make my own but that is someways off. I wonder if I could add a tiny little amount of hickory smoke powder to the rub prior to the SV in order to get a little smoke flavour.

You could also try smoked paprika.

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I wish I had a smoker. Eventually I want to try to make my own but that is someways off. I wonder if I could add a tiny little amount of hickory smoke powder to the rub prior to the SV in order to get a little smoke flavour.

Have you considered a hand-held smoke pipe for adding a little extra flavour prior to vac packing? You can buy them in Europe from places like All For Chefs for £20-30, although the build quality is a bit ropey. Or Polyscience do a more sturdy looking model for around $50.

restaurant, private catering, consultancy
feast for the senses / blog

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Great guys - thanks for all the advice. The Ideas in Food guys cook for 250F (121C) for 5 hours. I wonder if 75C would be better?

Digijam - that smoking gun looks great. Thanks for pointing it out cos I love a kitchen gadget. Have you used one? I am just wondering how much flavour one can induce into the ribs using one of these. I guess one uses it for 5 or 10 minutes which doesn't seem like it would induce much flavour compared to a 5 or 6 hour long slow cook in a real smoker.

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Digijam - that smoking gun looks great. Thanks for pointing it out cos I love a kitchen gadget. Have you used one? I am just wondering how much flavour one can induce into the ribs using one of these. I guess one uses it for 5 or 10 minutes which doesn't seem like it would induce much flavour compared to a 5 or 6 hour long slow cook in a real smoker.

I've only this week got a model from All For Chefs that works properly (after 3 months and 3 replacements), so haven't had a chance to find out just how much smoke flavour it can add to sous vide meat yet.

I bought it primarily for fish, but hopefully a long 'marinade' in the cold smoke (maybe a few hours rather than minutes), plus the flavour intensifying vac packing and sous vide tends to give will yield some decent results.

restaurant, private catering, consultancy
feast for the senses / blog

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It sounds like a great solution. My only concern is that the bowl for the smoking material looks so small that I can't imagine that it would be easy to get many hours of smoking out of it. I agree though that the SV would probably really intensify the flavour.

I'd love to hear how you get on with the Pipe. If it works I will definitely be getting one.

As a side note anyone know what temperature wood begins to smoke at? I might try an experiment with my precision hotplate.

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  • 4 weeks later...
It sounds like a great solution. My only concern is that the bowl for the smoking material looks so small that I can't imagine that it would be easy to get many hours of smoking out of it. I agree though that the SV would  probably really intensify the flavour.

I'd love to hear how you get on with the Pipe. If it works I will definitely be getting one.

As a side note anyone know what temperature wood begins to smoke at? I might try an experiment with my precision hotplate.

A belated update - finally got a chance to take the mini smoker for a spin, although using just a small portion of belly pork rather than ribs.

Left the meat in a sealed, smoke-filled container for 24 hours prior to vac-packing with a little sauce and sous vide-ing, and then left in smoke for another 2 hours before adding a little sauce and a final browning. The smoked taste was there - I'd say it would be enough for chicken or duck meat - but it was too subtle for a real bbq pork flavour. Jaccarding the meat first might have helped the flavour to penetrate, but even so I suspect pork needs the full hot smoker treatment.

BTW: The bowl is small, but a little goes a long way. You'd be surprised how easy it is to fill an entire kitchen with smoke using just a few wood chips. :wink:

restaurant, private catering, consultancy
feast for the senses / blog

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  • 1 month later...

While not being a long time smoker, but a long time rib lover, the material in this thread has been a good read. I have been smoking ribs for a few months, and by the trial and success method have arrived at a process that seems to be repeatable and successful. This is for dry ribs. I discovered some years ago that wet ribs taste like the sauce while dry ribs taste like pork unless you put too much dry rub on:

Baby back ribs

Remove membrane, odd dangling bits, and bone chips

Apply 1/4 to 1/3 c dry rub to each side

Dry Rub:

Mandatory stuff-

2/3 c chili powder (Smart & Final - chili, cumin, salt, pepper, garlic)

2/3 c New Mexico chili

1 c brown sugar (if you like a stronger flavor use Indian gur - dried sugar cane juice)

1 T kosher salt

Optional stuff -

1 t smoke salt

2 T black pepper

2 T cumin (toast and grind)

1 T onion powder

1 t garlic powder

Wrap in foil and refrigerate overnight

Remove from foil and cut to fit the rack in your smoker (meat temperature is about 48°F at the beginning of the cycle)

Smoke with 3 oz of applewood (this will be different for different smokers but only smoke for an hour or two and use a mild wood - the smoke doesn't begin to stick until the surface of the meat is dry so perhaps less if you predry the meat before starting to smoke)

Smoke for 6 hrs (4 hrs @ 250°F + 2 hrs @ 225°F) bones down or on edge, without opening the smoker. This may need to be a bit different for each smoker, mine is an AmeriQue, which is electric, well insulated, and with a PID temperature controller). If you have a probe in the ribs, the temperature should reach 180°F at about 4 hrs and stay there for the last 2 hrs. There is always a long period at around 160-165°F while the fat renders.

Commercial rib joints with big electric smokers generally smoke at 225°F for about 4 hrs, but they have big heaters that get the temperature up quickly and sometimes also have convection fans to make sure everything is at the same temperature. You can do this in your oven (convection or conventional) but without the smoke - and it is quite good that way too.

Try it. Change it as you need to. If the bones are falling out, reduce the temperature and humidity - as somebody pointed out up string humidity is what detaches the meat from the bones. If the meat is tough but the fat has all rendered out, reduce the temperature and increase the time.

Keep good records. Don't make big changes in one step. Buy good quality meat. Enjoy.

Doc

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  • 3 months later...

Mrs. C gave me a Weber Smoky Mountain (a.k.a. Weber bullet) for Xmas. Yup, she’s pretty wonderful. :wub: Anyway, we broke it in with West Coast Baby Backs from Smoke & Spice by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison. We removed the membrane from the ribs, sprinkled both sides with soy sauce, rubbed in equal parts five-spice powder and brown sugar, and marinated the ribs overnight.

With lots of help from the VirtualWeberBullet, we lit 40 charcoal briquettes with an upside-down chimney starter and fired up the bullet using the Minion method. We added four fist-sized chunks of hickory, rolled the ribs and secured them with bamboo skewers, and then smoked the ribs for almost four hours at 225 - 235F. Despite a light cold rain, the smoker held a remarkably steady temperature.

The bullet will never be this clean again. It is sitting on an 18” square concrete paver set on builder’s sand.

gallery_42956_2536_28420.jpg

Mrs. C laid a path of carpet scraps between the smoker and back door. Note dog sniffing at the gate – that is why we set up the smoker outside the fence. :biggrin:

gallery_42956_2536_51860.jpg

Finished - the ribs had an amazing smoky pork flavor. The ends were done just how we like them, but the middles remained a bit chewy. Next time we will smoke the ribs for another hour or so. All considered, very satisfying for a first effort.

gallery_42956_2536_31067.jpg

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Mrs. C gave me a Weber Smoky Mountain (a.k.a. Weber bullet) for Xmas. Yup, she’s pretty wonderful. :wub: Anyway, we broke it in with West Coast Baby Backs from Smoke & Spice by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison. We removed the membrane from the ribs, sprinkled both sides with soy sauce, rubbed in equal parts five-spice powder and brown sugar, and marinated the ribs overnight.

Looking good Bruce. I can only tell you from my personal experience that baby backs are a little on the lean side, and I think you will experience the full power of the grill from a regular rack. The added fat and connective tissue over time makes them SO special. Please report back on your adventures in Q'ing.

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Looking good Bruce. I can only tell you from my personal experience that baby backs are a little on the lean side, and I think you will experience the full power of the grill from a regular rack. The added fat and connective tissue over time makes them SO special. Please report back on your adventures in Q'ing.

Thank you, heidih. I am looking forward to smoking spare ribs (and pork butt, and brisket, and chicken, and fish, and fruit, and . . .). I started with baby backs because I wanted a direct comparison between the smoker and our old smoking-on-the-gas-grill setup. Even with baby backs, the smoker wins hands down.

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Ah, Bruce, it just warms my heart to hear of another convert! Question: did any bits just happen to fall off and into your mouth as you were determining just when to remove them from the Bullet?

Do let us know what's up next, and now starts the quest for more kinds of wood. As you drive by apple orchards late this winter, ask if they have any tree-trimmings they want to get rid of. I'm lucky in that one of my best friend's in-laws own an orchard.

Oh, and yes, to echo Heidi. Regular spare ribs will win out over these, I think.

And, no matter how much you're smoking, there's always room for a few sausages for another day...

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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Long time rib cooker and Certified BBQ Judge.

Be careful about putting salt based rubs on the ribs overnight, may get very hammy taste, you will be curing them. I normally just apply rub just before putting on the smoker.

We normally use baby backs, in competetion and for serving. We do this because we think they are better and quicker. Normally we get our ribs at Costco. If you buy a case they give you a 25% discount.

Method:

Pull membranes on back of rib, hit with rub and put on smoker. My smoker right now is a FEC100 pellet cooker made by cookshack. I can get 21 racks on at the same time laying flat, more if I use my rib racks.

at approx 240 degrees my ribs are done in 4 hours. I normally just use hickory pellets because the Fast Eddy cooker burns so clean you can not get things to smokey.

I have in the past also used a webber smokey mountain (actually had 4 of them) and a large Klose Pit for big parties and tailgaters. The FEC100 is the easiest smoker I have used so far.

I like several rubs, bonesmokers and also Smoking Guns, medium or hot.

Most specialty rubs and sauces I get from Hawgeyes.com. I know lots of bbq teams also get their supplies there also.

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Question:  did any bits just happen to fall off and into your mouth as you were determining just when to remove them from the Bullet?

I would be completely remiss if I did not do everything in my power to ensure that the ribs were properly cooked before serving my family. :wink: So, yes - for quality control purposes only, you understand.

Do let us know what's up next, and now starts the quest for more kinds of wood.  As you drive by apple orchards late this winter, ask if they have any tree-trimmings they want to get rid of.  I'm lucky in that one of my best friend's in-laws own an orchard.

Apple orchards - great idea, and lucky you. Pork butt is next on the agenda, so I need to read up about smoking butts. We also have some acorn squash and sweet potatoes that I want to try, and perhaps some smoked bananas.

And, no matter how much you're smoking, there's always room for a few sausages for another day...

*thump thump thump* (sound of me kicking myself). Another great idea – I wonder what smoked chorizo tastes like?

Long time rib cooker and Certified BBQ Judge.

Be careful about putting salt based rubs on the ribs overnight, may get very hammy taste, you will be curing them.  I normally just apply rub just before putting on the smoker.

duck833, thanks for the tips. Interesting point about marinating overnight and salt – there is a similar discussion somewhere on a brining or pre-salting thread. Presumably, some salt improves flavor, but too much causes a hammy taste. It would be nice to know at what point the transition occurs.

I have always wondered – does anyone but the judges get to eat the BBQ at a competition? :rolleyes:

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Regarding folks eating bbq at contests it depends on the contest, location and teams. You run into local food service laws and such. Also some teams don't like to give out samples because it distracts from getting the boxes ready for the next turn-in. Also some teams just bring enough for turn-ins and hardly any more. In KCBS cookoffs there is 1/2 hour before each turn-in, not much time.

Also some health departments do not allow any food given away.

What we normally do, at a large cookoff like in Las Vegas, is bring a couple of friends with us and turn over the food give away to them. They always have fun making lots of people happy with free great bbq. We never take anything home anyway. If we don't give it away we toss it.

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Brining in a properly-made (kosher) salt solution does not produce a "hammy" taste. It's the other elements that people often add to brines -- sugar, curing salt -- that produce the "hammy" effect. I don't believe that pre-seasoning meat with salt-based rubs produces such an effect, either. At least, it hasn't done so over my multiple attempts with it.

=R=

"Hey, hey, careful man! There's a beverage here!" --The Dude, The Big Lebowski

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It is my experience that the hammy taste is often a byproduct of the combustion gasses of a propane cooker, not salting.

Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn

AmazingRibs.com

Remember: No rules in the bedroom or kitchen,

Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn

http://amazingribs.com - The Zen of Ribs

http://amazingribs.com/smoke_signals_newsletter - "Smoke Signals" BBQ Newsletter

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