Ribs - What did I do wrong?

gdenby said:

I too prefer dry ribs, but I do like having a little warm sauce on the side.

Some questions to clarify:

Did you cook the ribs directly. That is, nothing to block the exposure to the glow from the lump? I cooked indirect, I used a placesetter (legs up), drip pan then grate. 

If so, at what level did you cook. With the grill on the fire ring? Or up Higher, closer to the felt line? The grate was on the placesetter, but probably about 6 inches below the felt line. Is this to low?  I do have a  PSWoo2 Extender maybe I should use this to get a more desired position on the BGE for ribs?

It is possible to cook ribs direct, but they require more care to keep from burning. Yours look sort of toasted. Agreed on the toasted part.

Some observations:

Don't waste olive oil. The olive flavor cooks away. Use something cheaper like canola or safflower, which have negligible flavor and a higher smoke point. Sounds good, I will use canola. 

You were right, you probably used too much wood. I rarely use more than an amount I could fit in my hand. I will use less wood, maybe chop the chunks into smaller pieces also. 

Fires tend to burn down the middle, but just as often there will be random hot spots. If you are cooking direct at whatever level, the food will need to be moved around, and flipped to compensate for the uneven heat. 

The "bad" smoke is thick and white. I find that if I am cooking in the 250 range, it takes at least another 20 minutes for it to fade away. Sometimes, considerably longer. Once it is mostly gone, its OK to put the food in. During the earlier parts of a long cook, you will probably see thin wisps of that is generally called blue smoke. Farther along, there may be no smoke visible at all, but that is OK. The wood is just baking away into aromatic vapors. I am confused a little by using wood. So we are smoking the ribs with the wood however I should wait to put my meat on just like I would with a steak and just lump, wait until the smoke is gone/blue smoke?

As others have said, it takes some time to get used to how the Egg works. While my ribs improved right away when I started cooking them in an Egg, it took me maybe 9 months to get them where I thought they were better than the average commercial offering, and another 6 months to get that quality reliably. I bet your ribs are awesome, what rubs are you using?  I just bought some Meat Church, Dizzy Pig, Bone Sucking Rub and Blues Hog. I cant decide which one to use next. Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate, so will my father

gdenby said:

As above, the grill should have been at the felt line. If the setter was on the fire box, it might have blocked some airflow, and would have become very hot. Not as hot as direct fire, but the meat was probably in a much warmer place than what the dome temp showed. Ok, I had the firebox, firering and placesetter in. 

Put the lump in, put the wood in. For medium duration cooks, I just plop a pile in the middle, for longer cooks, I mix thru the lump. Light. I use a weed burner, which makes things quick. I leave the dome open till I'm sure I have a couple spots glowing, then put in whatever gear I'm using for that cook. Typically, I just have an empty drip pan on a lower grill, and cook on a raised grill above it.Close dome, leave Daisy off, bottom open wide. Give it 10 - 15 min to reach 200F, then shut the vents to approximately where I expect a dome of 250 - 275. Let the temp rise to near that, tweak the vents if needed. Usually another 10 - 15 till the heavy smoke clears. Food on, then go away for a couple of hours. Check temp, tweak if necessary. At 4 hours for BBs, 5 hours for spares, peek in and see how things are going. If dry and or uneven, paint on a little more oil, and shift the food. Maybe add a bit more rub, or just a sprinkle of sugar in the last few minutes. Think I am going to try a lower temp as you suggested keep it close to 250. 

Rubs are a matter of taste. Mostly I dislike ones w. too much salt. And having them fresh is always a big plus. I've used Blues Hog, and liked it. Bone Sucking, I wasn't as impressed as most folks. Haven't tried Meat Church.

I've been working on my own rub off and on. Nothing to write home about yet. Typically I start w. DP Dizzy Dust, which seems all purpose to me, and add various things as I like.

My big discovery last year was that adding a light "finish" rub towards the end with fresh ground black pepper added gave a good boost to flavor. This sounds like a good idea. With about 30-45 mins left you do this?

Theophan said:

outdoorsmin said:

I am confused a little by using wood. So we are smoking the ribs with the wood however I should wait to put my meat on just like I would with a steak and just lump, wait until the smoke is gone/blue smoke?

You're right that there's a little contradiction, there.  Imagine the lump alone, for a moment, with no wood chunks at all.  Most lump charcoal (my BGE lump, for example) will give off a heavy white smoke for a little while that doesn't smell as nice as the rest of the cook, so yeah, with no wood chunks, you'd wait till the really visible white smoke is mostly gone, and it's mostly light blue smoke.

But if wood chunks are really going, they'll give off some smoke that's not always blue, and can look a bit like the "bad" smoke most lump gives off for a while when it's straight out of the bag.  Usually, for a low and slow cook, even with wood chunks there's still a very noticeable difference between the very thick white "bad smoke" and when that's gone, usually after 10 or 20 minutes.  If there's a lot of wood in there, there might still be some whitish smoke, but it's a LOT less.  AND it smells good!

I like really smoky pork and beef, so I like to add a lot of wood, and the last time I did ribs, I took someone's suggestion and did this:

1. Light the fire with NO plate setter and NO wood chunks.  Both vents wide open.
2. When the dome temp gets up to the desired temp (in my case last time, about 200), close the vents down to what'll probably keep the temp there.
3. Watch and wait till the white smoke is gone, or mostly so, tweaking the vents as necessary to get the temp right.
4. THEN when the bad smoke is gone, open it up, take out the grate, add the wood chunks, placing them according to where the fire is, THEN add the Plate Setter and the grid. Close it up, let the temp get back to the desired dome temp (it didn't take long at all), and then
5. Put on the ribs.

It worked like a charm!  My wood wasn't wasted, burning during the "bad smoke" period, it was obvious when the "bad smoke" was gone, and I could place the wood right where I wanted it relative to where the fire was burning, and I got visible smoke from the wood (but MUCH less than the "bad smoke) for a really long time.

Now, I've heard some people say that putting a non-hot Plate Setter over a fire risks cracking it, and that it's better to put it in when the fire is first lit, but I've done that a few times, at least, with no problem, and in a low-and slow the fire isn't really very hot.  Maybe some others here have some experience about this, pro or con.

Anyway, the bottom line is that you're right, lump that came straight out of the bag can cause unpleasant thick white smoke, and wood chunks can cause also make white smoke, but it's lighter and it's pleasant smoke.  The two differences are (a) the "bad smoke" tends to be very thick, and when it's gone there's a big decrease in how much smoke, and (b) the whole point about "bad smoke" is that it doesn't smell very good (or make the food taste very good).  So you can tell the difference that way, too.

Theophan said:

outdoorsmin said:

So if I add the wood correctly in my lump I should get the wood "good" smoke all throughout my cook? 

  It may sound nerdy (and I gotta admit, OK, OK, I am a nerd ) but I find that keeping a journal of my cooks, and what I've tried and how it went, what went well and what didn't go so well, has been really, really helpful to me.  Might be an idea

Good Idea. I should start doing this. To many beers then I get a bad memory of what worked and didn't work!