1st time smoking ribs, need advice

oueggman

I am smoking some spare ribs for the first time on my large BGE. I am 3 hours into the 3-2-1 method and when I just took them off to transfer to foil they look done to me already! They have pulled up from the bone about 1/2 inch and I dont know if this is normal or not, I was not expecting them to look this "done" already. I kept the fire stable around 240-250, only going up as far as 300 once for just a few minutes early in the process. They are currently back in the egg in foil but I'm wondering if I should shorten the process some. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Thanks

Fidel

Two hours in foil can be too much with those spares. Just keep an eye on them. I would personally cook them without the foil and back the temps down a little.

If spares are pulling back in 3 hours then it seems your dome thermometer may be reading low.

oueggman

Thank you Fidel, I will take them out of foil soon and dial my temp down a little, it must be reading a little low.

tjv

if the ribs bent (per pic) when you put them in the foil, then they were done. It's almost like, you think they will break at the bend when handling.

Chances are they will be very tender (easy to pull from the bone)coming out of the foil. You can use heat during the sauce hour to reduce the fall off the bone affect gained while in the foil. It's almost like ribs are too tender after foiling and you untender (is that a word) while glazing the sauce in last hour. t

oueggman

tjv you are exactly right and next time I will know. When I pulled them out of the foil after about an hour they were falling off the bone tender and I was scared to overcook them by putting them back on the heat. They were fantastic though and everyone enjoyed them but I would have preferred them to actually stay together. They were difficult to handle as they kept falling apart, but they were delicious. Thanks to you for the advice.