Advice needed for rib cook-off

you can guarantee a victory by calling me up to come over and cook it for you! Good luck you will kick their a====

I'd trim them to STL cut, then smoke them with cherry wood. I've often gotten a beautiful red-orange hue to my spares when I do that. Very appealing, IMO.



As for taste, the DP Dizzy Dust and Blues Hog are great choices. If you're going to foil them, I'd recommend putting something into the wrap: honey, butter/Parkay, brown sugar, ground pepper, etc. or a combination of them. I'm sure others have good ideas on braising liquid, too.

Have you ever heard the expression "it's the cook not the cooker"? This holds true to some degree, and it's no secret that if you have a reliable cooker, and one that you know how to operate you have the best of both worlds. Eggs are fantistic cookers, I have two of them. But don't underestimate a BDS..... I have two of them also. Heheheee. So, since I cook on both of these cookers maybe I can help.

Appearance: Well, it's a well known fact that glazed ribs will get high marks. Usually the higher gloss ones score better in competition. Do a Google Image search for "rib turn in boxes" and you will see some good examples.

Texture: If you feel they like fall-off-the-bone ribs, the easiest way to achieve this is by using a foil step. With spares I go about 4 hours in the pit, then foil for 45 minutes to an hour. If you are going to glaze them, allow another 20 to 30 minutes of handling and glaze time.

Taste: This is where it all comes down. And to be perfectly honest ribs off an Egg have a totally different flavor than ribs off a drum smoker. You know what your Egged ribs taste like, so I'll tell you about ribs from a drum. A BDS is a very, very raised direct smoker, the cooking grate is 30" or more above the charcoal. As the fats from the meat render to the surface and drip, these little flavor bombs fall into the coals releasing a type of flavor only known to folks that have experienced open pit BBQ. In other words the flavor is a mixture of smoke and fats. During the cook, BDS ribs need to be turned several times, this makes for a very even doneness and a very nice color.

That said, your best defense will be a clever use of rubs, combined with using the best quality of smoking wood you can get and a glaze that not only looks good, but has a good flavor. Dizzy Dust is an excellent choice, and I use it as a base for a lot of my pork barbecue. Blues Hog is one of the best out there and a lot of competition cooks use it (or use it as a base for their own concoction). As far as wood goes, hickory is common and a lot of folks can relate to it's flavor.... but I prefer cherry or a mix of cherry and apple on my ribs.

I totally agree with the saying, "It's not the cooker, it's the cook" as I have had this experience just a few weeks ago...

I have an XL egg and have been practicing a rib (baby backs) cook-off for months. I finally got my recipe/technique down in the last two weeks prior to the cook-off. I settled with the 3-1-20 method (3 hours on rack, 1 hour foil, 20 min sauce) since I know the judges wanted fall off the bone.

Anyway, the ribs were due at 5 PM sharp! If you're late, you are deducted 5 points... I started the egg at 11 and let it stabilize at 250 for over an hour. I added my apple/cherry chunks in at 12:30 and the ribs (coasted with mustard/DD) shortly after. At 3:30, I foiled them. NOW HERE'S WHERE I MESSED UP. I glazed them with honey, brown sugar, and then added way too much apple juice to it but didn't realize it since I was in a hurry. I put them back on for an hour and in the mean time, I cooked my sauce (basically Blues Hog with a bunch of vinegar since BH is too sweet to me).

An hour later, I noticed the ribs looked "odd." The bones weren't pulled back, the rub came off, and the they failed the toothpick and bend test miserably. Having less than 30 min left, I had to act fast. I took out the platesetter, added my sauce and directly cooked them at 350-385 rotating and turning every few seconds to not burn it. Anyway, this did the trick. They came out moist and tender and were now passing the bend test. I ended up pulling them off at 4:50 and got to the destination with a minute to spare! I ended up winning by 2.5 points! If I was a minute late, I would have lost.

I will never make that same mistake again... If you foil, DON'T USE TOO MUCH LIQUIDS!

Yeah, your pit timing was off a little, starting the fire early never hurts.

As far as the foil portion of the cook, maybe you did use too much apple juice.... but did you heat it up before adding to the foil pouch? If not, that might be the problem. Cold liquid takes a long time to get up to braising temps.