So I've got a problem with my cook today. I'm doing 4 racks of spare ribs in a stand up rib rack in a 22 inch kettle. My last few cooks for 1-2 racks of ribs have been around the 6 hour time frame. I expected the same results here. I'm now 3 hours into the cook and I've got some good pull back from the bone, good color for the most part.
The problem is the guests are due here for another 2-3 hours.
How do I slow this down? Can I just lower the temp from the current ~225 and keep them warm, kicking up the temp later? Stack them to give it a thicker profile and rotate them? Or take them off for an hour or so and let them cook again later?
Chuck
you could just lower the temp.....I've done that before......
it's a little tricky, you have to make sure the readings you're getting are right....if the 225 you were getting was higher, then a 180f reading might still be moving the cooking along too fast....make sense how I'm describing it?
I've, for instance, hot held brisket, on kettle, with a single row of coals burning to keep the temp @ 165 approx. for a couple hours........just warm enough, not really heavily cooking......
semi-loose foil, in a dry ice chest, NOT packed with towels (to allow a rest, without tight pack steaming) is another way.....then maybe a very short heatup near feed bag time...........
Cheers for the knowledge, Buckie. It makes perfect sense to me!
Quote from: Thomas Andrews on August 30, 2014, 11:49:58 AM
Cheers for the knowledge, Buckie. It makes perfect sense to me!
I just hope it goes OK for Chuck.......that's an odd situation I've been in a bunch of times......don't want to finish too, too fast & have things turn to mush overcooking while the party starts late (or later than you've cooked for)
It's hard to tell how to handle it exactly.......that's really a 'play the ball where it lies' kind of situation.............
First, sorry for the delay of a response. Its been a busy weekend.
I did wind up slowing things down a bit using a combination of the lowering of the temp and stacking the racks of ribs. I rotated them every 25-30 minutes for the last 3 hours. I didn't get the color/bark I like at the end, but the taste was still good and got compliments all around for them.
I was using a fairly new Maverick ET-733 for monitoring the temps. I think you're right Buckie, in that the thermometer is reading a bit lower than the actual temp. I'm going to be doing a boiling water test with it in the next day or two when I have time.
Glad it worked out well !!!
sometimes I find if the therm (Thermapen in my case) hits the wrong spot by just a bit, I'll get a weird reading & start thinking either I'm OK or things are running amok, instead of an accurate assessment.......
see here ;
http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/grilling-bbqing/f'in-thermometers-f'in-hi-heat-f'in-searing/msg98039/#msg98039
I'll return to just the grate therms & looking at what I'm looking at to snap out of the fog...... :o