And on the fifth night of Meatmas...a Meatmas miracle! Not really a miracle, I guess. Just the best bachelor meal so far this week. I started prepping around noon to do a rack of spareribs on the CGA. I picked up a BBQube heat deflector shield for my “at home” CGA (the other one lives in my trunk with some basic BBQ & S’mores supplies, just in case) a few months back, but I’ve never had an opportunity to smoke just a single rack.
Well, today was the day. After sleeping in ‘til 10am, (Yeah, you heard me. I Can’t remember the last time THAT happened) I slowly got around to loading the KBB & some apple chips into the little guy, and trying to figure out how to fit a full rack alongside an ambient temp probe, but I finally made it work by splitting into three main sections & overlapping rib-side to rib-side.
Big thanks to @mikerocksthered for a secret ingredient during the wrapped two-hour portion of this 3-2-1 job! Memphis-style rub made these possibly the best ribs I’ve ever made. That BBQube Heat deflector is AMAZING! At $20, I highly recommend it:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5H889S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_6TXhCb2HFX7Z1A buddy joined me again tonight, and my cook timing kinda’ sucked, resulting in an unintended three separate course meal that stretched over a couple hours. It actually worked out well, but I’m glad it was just two guys with a bunch of food & beer, not several couples at a sit down meal. Ribs came out first, then melted onions about a half-hour later, followed by Hassleback potatoes another 45 min. or so after that. They sort of doubled as dessert, as I topped ‘em off with a jalapeño bacon-infused sour cream that was outa’ this world!
There was even time to smoke some pepper jack & colby as a Christmas gift for the neighbors before I fly out to join the wife & kids in a couple days. I’ll certainly be repeating this meal when we all return home in 2019!
-Jed