Ideal Smoke Time for Ribs

[Thomas Andrews]

I'm smoking some spare ribs low and slow tomorrow. It's a big slab and it'll probably go beyond six hours. They weigh just over 2kg (just under four and a half pounds).

How long do you guys usually smoke for, in terms of the cook, without oversmoking?

First hour, two hours?

Any input would be great. I'm just tying to refine my technique and make it a little more precise for optimum results.

[Idahawk]

If your talking pork ribs like spare ribs , 3 hrs of smoke is popular , then wrap .. ? Does that help


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[Idahawk]

Understand that's only part of the cooking process


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[Thomas Andrews]

Perfect. Much obliged, Idahawk!

[Darko]

Low & slow, take them to 195 IT. They'll be wonderful.

[Thomas Andrews]

I ended up smoking for 3 hours at 225-250f. I spritzed them every half hour until I wrapped them.

I eventually let them go for another 3 hours in the foil, as they didn't have enough pull back on the bones after two hours.

At this point I was worried that they still had even longer to go.

However, I unwrapped and placed back on the grill for half an hour before saucing them up with some Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce and then let them go another 20 minutes.

After resting for another 20 minutes they were finally ready...

[Thomas Andrews]

I ended up smoking for 3 hours at 225-250f. I spritzed them every half hour until I wrapped them.

I eventually let them go for another 3 hours in the foil, as they didn't have enough pull back on the bones after two hours.

At this point I was worried that they still had even longer to go.

However, I unwrapped and placed back on the grill for half an hour before saucing them up with some Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce and then let them go another 20 minutes.

After resting for another 20 minutes they were finally ready...

[MacEggs]

Wow, so that's nearly 7 hours ??  If you liked them, then that's all that matters.

BTW, the pics above are not currently showing up.

[Thomas Andrews]

They were very, very large ribs! I'll try to upload the pictures a different way.

[Thomas Andrews]

[Thomas Andrews]

Apologies for my photography skills!

[MacEggs]

The pics look great !

In my experience cooking whole spares … They definitely take longer than cutting them into St. Louis cut slabs and cooking them that way.

Also, contrary to some popular opinion … Opening and closing your lid every 30 minutes to spritz will add to the cook time.
I have done this before … Back when I was just starting out cooking ribs.  I quickly abandoned this step, as I found it unnecessary.  YMMV

Keep at it … The journey is fun. 

[Thomas Andrews]

Many thanks for the advice, MacEggs!

[Yendor]

I'm with MacEggs on the spritzing. I've even read that it will pull heat out of the meat similar to how sweating pulls heat off of us. I too stopped it after reading that it really didn't affect anything, and it didn't change anything for me.

[Jake]

No spritzing and no looking at them either. I have big S.S. spatula I got for fathers days a few years ago and the reach is terrific! I can keep  them fuckers away from my memphis style pork ribs like you woudn't believe, They come out better then