*RIB BATTLE* Low and slow vs 3-1-1

OK, I admit that I am a little old school on a lot of things. I have been doing low and slow method of ribs for well over 20 years. That's all I knew until I came on this forum and watch the dvd that came with the new mini. On this forum and on the dvd, Eggheads were cooking ribs in 3 to 4 hours! What the heck have I been doing that it takes me 7 to 8 hours? I just had to find out. Maybe it was the temprature. Maybe they marinated the ribs. I had to know!

So let us lay the ground work. I had 5 real chefs come over for some cocktails and asked them to blind judge. First "My" definition of low and slow is indirect at 220 until the internal temp is at 190. No foil and I smoke them for the first 3 hours only.

3-1-1 from my understanding is 3 hours indirect at 225 - 250 then you take the ribs and wrap them in foil put them back on the egg for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove from foil and finish indirect or direct for 1 hour. Hence 3-1-1.
OK so lets start:

I start with a yellow mustard> This helps the rub to stick and also helps to make a bark. The top rack is Bone Sucking Sauce Rub. The middle rack is just onion salt and granulated garlic. The bottom rack is Bad Byrons Butt Rub.

Ribs go on at 9 am. Pit temp at 230, meat temp at 85.

Left to right: Bone Sucking/Onion,garlic/Bad Byron's
At the 3 hour mark I pulled the Bad Byrons rack, cut them in two, spayed some Can-apple juice and wraped them in foil. Placed back on the egg for 1 hour. Sprayed the rest of the racks with the same juice and closed the dome and made a drink. After another hour I unwrapped the ribs in the foil. Wow they were moist and soggy, fall off the bone tender. We tried a few of the ribs and checked for texture and flavor. Tasted like boiled ribs and had a mushy feel. OK, back on the indirect heat for another hour.
Right at 2:05 I mopped on some finishing sauce on some of the ribs for that Kansas City Style and left two small 1/2 racks dry for Memphis Style. I shut down the egg for 15 minutes.

Here are the results. These two ribs were the Memphis style. The top one is low and slow and the other is 3-1-1. The low and slow is jucier and the meat is firm but very tender. It pulls away from the bone clean. The 3-1-1 rib was some what dry but very tender. The last hour seemed to firm up the meat. Notice the bone of the bottom ribs have shrunk more than a full inch. These were the 3-1-1 ribs.
These are the Kansas City style ribs.


All the chefs agreed (that's hard to do)Bone Sucking Sauce rub and low and slow is the clear winner.
Bottom line is 3-1-1 maybe faster and fall off the bone tender, but all agree that low and slow has better taste and textue.