Ribs

MattBTI

fist rib cook in progress. 2 hours in, it's so hard to resist the urge to open the lid!

chuckytheegghead

If you're lookin' you're not cookin'. Standing by for the results. 

dougcrann

If you open the lid the ribs will be not be safe for you to eat....so give me your address...

johnkitchens

They will be great. I am craving ribs. I feel a rib cook coming soon. 

MattBTI

I never did get a chance to snap a pic of the ribs. They didn't last long. An A+ meal for sure. Very happy friends and family. Brother even gave a pat on the back. That doesn't happen often. 

MattBTI

Just a few morsels and a popper or two left  s 

RedSkip

@MattBTI  It's a ceramic cooker which holds heat extremely well.  The old saying, "looking you're not cooking", is from thin walled metal cookers.  It takes a decent amount of time to get those back up to temp that you actually extend your cook time.  

The thermal mass of the egg is different... If you want to look, open the lid.

MattBTI

I wish i would have snapped a picture, I started the ribs at 250 dome temp, by the end of the 3rd hour dome was up to 260. I cooked 3 racks, 2 full and 1 halved. I wrapped them all for an hour after the initial 3hours. two of which i put on honey and brown sugar, the other two a drizzle of olive oil and tony's. after an hour in the crutch i removed them from foil for the final 30 min. The rub that went on all of them the night before was a variant of one i found in the amazin smoking tube manual. The general consensus seemed to be that the ribs finished with tony's were best. I did not use any bbq sauce, no one seemed to need it. I prefer a naked rib. The moisture was there, the bark was right on, and the degree of doneness was perfect in my opinion. served up with home made potato salad, complements of my sister in law, jap popper, cheesy potatos and mozzarella biscuit bombs. Fat kid food for sure! Temp kept creeping up on me. i only opened the egg 3 times, by the time I unwrapped for the final 30 min dome was up to 300. i had daisy wheel barely open and bottom draft a millimeter and could not stop it from creeping up. Is that normal for the egg or is there a way to control that creep? i suppose completely shutting it down would bring it back down? will that extinguish the coals? thanks

gdenby

Even the remnants look good. Great 1st run.

I'd have to suppose the Egg hasn't been used a lot yet, this being your 1st ribs. With use, the Daisy and gaskets "gunk" up, giving a tighter air seal. In fact, you can get into a situation where are really crusty Daisy is almost impossible to remove from the Egg. The up side is that the tighter seal makes fine low temp control easier.

So, a clean Egg may need to be all but closed to stay around 250. However, there might be a small leak because the dome is not perfectly seated. Put a dollar bill on the lip, close the dome and be sure its resists being pulled out. Repeat all around the dome.

The problem w. opening the dome a lot is that there will be lots of somewhat brief temp variations. That may tempt one to re-set the vents. Bad idea. As mentioned above, the ceramics retain heat, and as long as the airflow remains constant, the base temp will eventually return.

Quick inspections are OK, but not necessary. Quick openings to flip meat, or shift it around if portions are getting hotter than others isn't a problem. Try to keep operations that take some time like foiling brief. Misting or mopping doesn't add much unless you are doing it often to add flavor, in which case, the cook will take measurably more time due to having to drive off the added water vapor.

ThrasherIII

has any body heard of marinating ribs before applying a rub? I'm new to the Egg and was wondering if anyone has heard or tried that?
 

gdenby

ThrasherIII said:

has any body heard of marinating ribs before applying a rub? I'm new to the Egg and was wondering if anyone has heard or tried that?
 

I've tried everything. It wasn't worth the effort, IMO.

Pork ribs tend to be quite fatty, and are full of connective tissue. Marinades don't soak in very well. I suppose you could cut the slab into individual pieces, but the advantage would be smal compared to the fussl.

One of the advantages of Egg cooking is they retention of moisture in the meat. A nice rub crust blends w. the juicy meat when the rib gets bitten.

The common practice of foiling the meat when nearly cooked w. enough flavored fluid for an hour or 2 works better if you want to blend other flavors w. the meat tste. The mostly cooked meat accepts the fluid rapidly. Note, you might end up w. meat flavored toffee after.

DieselkW

The problem with opening the lid is it feeds the fire - adds oxygen that you're trying to minimize with that tiny crack in the lower vent.
Opening the lid floods that fire with air, raising the temp of the fire, while lowering the temp on the dome thermometer.

That's why you don't open it. That's why your temp went from a steady 250º to 300º, you gave the fire what it needed to breathe. Even if you didn't check it every hour, you opened her up when you wrapped the ribs in foil, I'll bet it was then you noticed the temp spiked.

It's not a big deal, the ribs don't care if they're at 250 or 300 - especially at the end.

ThrasherIII

thank you for the information gdenby. I will concentrate on the rub, low and slow. would you recommend soaked wood chips in the coals or soaked chunks? have you tried chips in a drip pan on an inverted place setter? legsup is what I mean by inverted, any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for the information you have already shared

DieselkW

Don't soak your smoking wood for use in an egg.

ThrasherIII

if you already have chips instead of chunks, what would you recommend?

Hans61

any rib recipe will work good on the egg. for my smoke on ribs i like 1 part hickory to two parts fruit of any variety. 

Dobie

I open every 45 minutes or so and spritz settles back to temp quicky. 

Hans61

Close bottom air door before opening dome help? I usually do to try and avoid the heat spike. 

MattBTI

Hans61 said:

any rib recipe will work good on the egg. for my smoke on ribs i like 1 part hickory to two parts fruit of any variety. 

I used half hickory and half apple. 

gdenby

A late response.

Soaking the wood, chips or chunks, does not have much effect in any cooker because the wood, even after a day of soaking, is only wet near the surface. In an Egg, it is not necessary. The air flow is so small that the wood cannot start flaming. It just bakes away into good flavors.

Don't worry about brief spikes from opening the dome. A steady temperature seems to me to provide better results, so I avoid opening the dome until the expected end of the cook. Little advantage in spritzing unless the surface of the meat shows no sign of moisture, in which case it might start charring.

Choice of wood is largely a matter of taste. I prefer white oak or hickory for both beef and pork. Fruit woods, apple, peach, cherry, etc for poultry. But there are people who use mesquite or walnut. If you like, you can toss in allspice berries, juniper berries, cloves (careful), and other spices. Expensive, but the aroma around the cooker can be wonderful.