Slower Cooked Ribs Verdict

Charcoal Mike

Thanks to all for their feedback yesterday. Here is what I did:[p]Took three racks of baby-backs, cut into six halves, and rubbed with Gilded Splinters and mustard the day prior.[p]Used platesetter / drip pan / grid / v-rack combination.[p]Put the ribs on not long after the starter cubes extinguished, and added some soaked apple and pecan chunks, as well as a soaked onion. Brought the temp slowly to 250 (about 30 minutes). mmmm, the smell.[p]Flipped and sprayed with apple juice every 45 minutes for 3 hours and 45 minutes. The dome temp never went below 240, and never above 250 during this time after that first half hout.[p]I was a few hours early for dinner at this point, so I put the ribs in a casserole dish, and wrapped it with a couple of layers of heavy-duty foil. I just left the dish on the counter in the kitchen. It stayed here for about 1.5 hours. Ribs stayed very warm.[p]I then went direct at about 275 (raised grid) for about 30 minutes, adding sauce (GFW's sauce) and flipping every so often.[p]Verdict ? The absolute best damn ribs I have ever had, bar none. Excellent smoke penetration, and meat that pulled (not fell) neatly off the bone. 250 is the way to go for sure. Wow. [p]*** Problem - not all of the ribs were done. I should have known up front, but the ribs that had the shrinkage (about 3/8 inch) were the ones that were out of this world. Of the other, larger ribs, they had very minimal shrinkage, and turned out to be a bit too fatty - not quite as good as the others. They could have used another 45 minutes I believe (4.5 hours + 30 minutes direct total). Next time I will go ahead and pull them as I go, and wait until they are all at the same stage of shrinkage before going direct. Lesson learned.[p]Anyway, 250 seemed to turn out quite well for this cook, and thanks to all for the great feedback.[p]Cheers![p]- Mike[p]