Slow smoked short ribs pics

TheToast · February 2016

Hi all. So I think I'm about 7 cooks into my BGE ownership now and today decided to cook short ribs for a second time, after the first batch took forever to finish.

2.5kg of Angus beef ribs.

Rubbed with Pitt Cue's house rub (made from their recipe - it's good, sweet, salty, with a light fennel taste).

Stuck it in, then planned to be out visiting family for a few hours. Was prepared to just leave it stabilised but then had an idea to use that Periscope live streaming app to keep an eye on the temp remotely. So I set my iPad up, pointed it at my maverick receiver and used a clock to ensure the stream I checked wasn't frozen. Hey presto - I could check the temp at any time from my iPhone. A few other people discovered the stream and had no idea what the hell it was about, but hey ho.

I didnt actually need to bother - after 4hrs, the grill temp had only fluctuated up to 110c which is what I was aiming for anyway.

Many hours later

These were great but I still strive for better. They were soft and moist, and oozed juice when squeezed softly, but I think I can better them.

I foiled them after 77c - never tried that before and was surprised how rapidly the temp rises after that. One question though: after they hit 90c I checked for tenderness and they seemed soft and floppy when I took them out of the foil. Having read recommendations to put them back on smoke for 30mins, out of the foil, I did just that and was surprised that despite the grill temp being the same, the internal meat temp steadily dropped from 91c to 78c without any sign of rising again - is this normal? When I checked the ribs, it felt like they'd toughened up in that time too. I just took em off, foiled and rested for 45mins and that seemed to soften them up again.

Next I'm thinking of taking the plunge and doing brisket. Bit scared.

shtgunal3 · February 2016

Those ribs look awesome dude! I haven't tried beef ribs yet. I may have to now.

TheToast · February 2016

@shtgunal3 I've still yet to try cooking pork ribs! Baby backs are harder to come by this time of year in the uk it seems.

Ragtop99 · February 2016

Those look good.

I don't use foil, but I'll speculate that that either:
1) your probe was near moisture in the foil, which cause a warmer reading, or
2) after removing the foil, moisture was still evaporating from the meat so that you experienced the same effect that happens in a stall when slow cooking a big chunk of meat like a pork butt.