Propane Powered Ribs
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 3:57PM Admittedly, I should leave the BBQ to Braddog but I found myself doing quite a bit of barbecuing over the holiday break and wanted to share my experience.
A propane fueled smoker must be the barbeque equivalent of extract home brewing. However, like malt extract propane has its merits. Many of my BBQ sessions over the holiday were in cold windy weather and I was still able to dial in my propane to a consistent temp and had the smoker ready for meat in about 15 min! I'd love to have a Big Green Egg, I'm just not ready to make the investment. So for now, I'm making the most of my Wal-Mart special. Its a box smoker with four racks, water pan, and box for wood chips.
Today I loaded it up with a few racks of ribs and ABTs to celebrate the end of the holiday season. I employed several tips I've picked up from Braddog too!
I threw together a rub last night with a cup of dark brown cane sugar, 3/4 cup of kosher salt, and a cup of combined spices including red pepper, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, and a generous portion of Emeril's seasoning (Bam!). I removed the membrane from the back of each rack, gave them a good rub down and wrapped them up to rest overnight then soaked hickory chunks in water.
This morning I fired up the smoker to about 220°, put a lump or two of charcoal in the wood box, topped it off with the hickory then filled the water pan with beer and water from the hickory soak.
I smoked the ribs for about 90 min, wrapped in foil and put back in the smoker for another 90 min. Next, I removed the ribs from the foil and basted a couple of racks with an impromptu BBQ sauce (see my comment on Braddog's DIY sauce entry for recipe) leaving one rack without sauce. I loaded up some ABTs, threw in some more wood chips and left them to finish for another 45 min.
They turned out to be the best batch I've produced to date! Rib meat was tender and tugged easily from the bone without being too mushy or leathery. Big thanks to Braddog for all the great tips! -D
Reader Comments (4)
Nice job! Ribs look great!
Cheers,
Braddog
Ribs look amazing! How do you determine when your ribs are done.....internal temp or do you use the "tear test"? I'm trying to figure out the better method. so far my vote is leaning toward the tear test. Oh,and the next time I fire up the smoker those ABTs are joining the party for sure.
Happy smoking
Mike;
It's really hard to get an internal temp on ribs since there's not a ton of space between the bones. I use a combination of visual queues and flexibility of the rack. If the meat's pulling back nicely from the ribs and the meat cracks and when you lift the rack by one end (ready to tear apart in the middle), then you're done.
Cheers,
Braddog
I notice the meat begining to pull back a 1/4 inch or so from the tips of the ribs when they were ready (the top rack in the picture was puching overdone since it spent most of the day closer to the flame). I knew these babies were good to go when I went to flip a rack for basting and it seperated clean in the middle. That's also the point when you risk drooling all over yourself!
Technically, they were "done" about two hours into the smoke, but they weren't ready to melt in your mouth for two more hours. Just keep the cooker low and slow.
-D