Cooking ribs on a bell curve

[addicted-to-smoke]

St. Louis style spare ribs, because I was TIRED of reading about all yuse guys cooking ribs with getting ANY.

Lit the mini a "new" way. Lit one cube and then slowly piled about 9 briquets on top of it. It worked, but took about 30mins to reach real temp. So maybe it didn't work well. It was however EASY to do without needing a chimney nor lighter fluid. The rest is Kingsford Hickory.








Went inside to season. Weber Chicken 'n Rib mixed with a little cocoa spice rub from my chef friend Dave O. in STL. That's it. I didn't pull off the membrane; I'm never good at that anyway. I just cut the rib rack in half and unwrapped a toy I bought last year at the Home Depot closeout. They sell today it's replacement, now from Nexgrill who I'm guessing bought some or all of Brinkmann's stuff.




Full disclosure, when the meat went on the smoker, its temperature was still only at about 100-115 degrees. Yeah, I know, not safe, but it steadily rose. The beginning of the bell curve .... by the way, the Brinkmann Rib Rack is a perfect fit for the mini WSM / 14.5" WSM.




This next picture was at 4 hrs. Surely cooked, but seemed stiff although I don't know if a "bend test" is applicable on half-racks of ribs? What happened in the 4 hrs was that the smoker temp went from 100 up to 275, its max, and then went down to 220 until I pulled the ribs off at about the 5.5 hr mark with the smoker at like 195. Throughout, I never knew the meat temp. Smoker ran full open the whole time; I never tried to stabilize the temp because I knew it would ramp up and then down. The end of the bell curve.




No lie, I'd eat that.




I'd also eat this one, too.




Corn did it's thing on an 18er right towards the end, for about 20 mins? One full charcoal basket off to the side with one firebrick. Totally forgot the starch and couldn't talk the Boy into whipping up some mashed taters, his specialty. Oh well. So these weren't fall off the bone, I didn't care and wouldn't know how to make those anyway. They were however tender and juicy, with great flavor. So glad I didn't sauce them. And they never got a wrap nor any spritz. Basically, in terms of complexity this cook was one notch above hot dogs.

[Travis]

Looks to me like you got some approval on the ribbage.

So what's the deal with these mini's? I've been reading a bunch  on here about temp control issues. Do these have trouble running steady?


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[addicted-to-smoke]

In general, no --- they are stable. I'm not yet convinced I built mine right, by including the charcoal ring. That's needed for mini's that use the SJG bowl, which is like a WSM's (side intakes.) But I think I've seen some other builds that do include the ring with SJS bowls, so I don't really know.

My previous cook had it more or less rocking at 230-250, which is good enough for me, but only with some careful fiddling since small adjustments to the intake create large temp variances on a machine that's sealed as well as this one is. I've never cooked on a grill that sealed as well, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. With sloppy seals you can make crude adjustments and declare "success" when it works out OK.

Even so, mine's only going to stay stable a few hours at most. I'm hoping I could extend that by ditching the charcoal ring but since I wired it to the grate, haven't taken the time to undo it yet. But there's one more thing I want to try first, and that's start it "legitimately" with a few coals begun elsewhere so that the machine gets hit with a few HOT coals and semi-closed intake, not a few coals that are weakly started up with full open intake.

Actually there's another thing I want to try, a different diffuser plate, metal this time. The terra cotta plate broke after the first time I used it.

[Big Dave]

Great looking ribs!  Nice bark, smoke ring, and moisture.

[WNC]

Ribs look great!

I've got mini build in the works too, but with everything going on lately with them, I'm getting a little worried.

I do like how many ribs you could fit in there with the rib rack

[jamesnomore]

Looks great to me, I cook ribs the same way, no wrap, no spritz and prefer them chew off the bone not fall off the bone. Well done!

Here's what I do with my mini charcoal set up, I feel as long as air can get in then the coal burns fine. I deal with the same bell curve issue and just work with it like you did. This was ran a little hot, I've since started with fewer coals in the center and I'm staying between 225 and 300.

[addicted-to-smoke]

Ah, but @jamesnomore you're not using a charcoal ring even with the side intakes. Interesting. Is fall-off-the-bone an extra time thing? I've never really waited to see what would happen.

[jamesnomore]

As long as the air can get in the coal will burn, I've never had issues. My pot sits high which allows for more air, I attached the lid do the bottom like others have which lets it sit higher on the bowl.

I do ribs like you do, I wrapped once, then they got all mushy and that's the last time I did that.

[SteveZ]

Great Pictures of them ribs! I could almost pick one right off the screen.

[Big Dawg]

Both halves came out great.  Looks like you've got a happy customer, too ! !





BD