I bought a nifty smoker earlier this summer. It’s a vertical water smoker, with two racks. I’ve only used it a few times, so I’m no expert smoker.
I invited some people over for ribs this evening… and they mentioned it to some other people, who mentioned it to others (all relatives of mine :rolleyes: ) So what it comes down to is I have a WHOLE lot more people than I originally expected. More to feed than what will fit in the smoker.
Mr. Athena asked me last night “Can you pile the ribs on top of each other in the smoker?” I thought about it. There’s certainly enough room to build loose piles of racks of ribs - I figure I’d pile 'em sort of like you pile kindling to make a fire. Loose, with lots of air around each piece. They take 4-5 hours to cook with one layer of ribs, and I could easily give it another hour or two to account for the stacked ones.
Zen, I got the basics of smoking down just fine, including my own dry rub, the humidity, the type of wood, and a smoker (NOT a grill - grills just don’t do the trick, IMO). Also got amazing BBQ sauce that incorporates an dried ancho sauce, originally made for enchiladas but I had a lot of leftovers, so it became the base for a truly lovely BBQ sauce. That’s for after, of course - the best ribs, IMO, are smoked first, and the sauce is applied when they’re done.
The ribs are in the smoker at the moment. I wished I had a vertical rack as mentioned, but alas, no luck in finding one. Will order one ASAP. In the meantime, I loosely stacked them, and will rotate them as needed. I’m pretty sure it’ll work, but we’ll see. Smoking, unlike many other cooking techniques, seems to work fine at full capacity.
Pork ribs. They be pork ribs.
I’d invite y’all over, but like I said, I’ve got too many coming as it is!
Yeah, a hot smoker. I highly recommend one. They’re relatively inexpensive ($90 mail order, including shipping), and they produce the most wonderful smoked meat. I have a duck in the freezer that’s scheduled for next week. Last week was chicken thighs. I had hoped to make pizza with them (smoked chicken and chevre… yummm…), but alas, they all got eaten up in Smoked Chicken and Corn Quesadillas. They were so good it hurt.
Someday, I hope to have a big ol’ horizontal smoker - the kind the professionals use. But not quite yet. First comes the new house… then the outdoor brick oven… then the professional smoker.
I sort of tried to lean 'em up against each other. This was after scouring my house for something that would work as a vertical rack. Shit. Now that I think about it, I have a v-rack for roasting turkeys that probably would have worked if I turned it upside down… why didn’t I think of that 4 hours ago?
Anyway, they seem to be doing just fine. I had to turn the heat up a bit to get the desired temperature (200 degrees for 4-6 hours is the sweet spot). The hardest thing so far is having to work while I smell this stuff smoking all day!
Heat source is on the bottom. See here.. Heat source is on the bottom, directly above is a water pan, then two racks for ribs.
They turned out OK. The problem wasn’t the cooking method; the quality of the ribs themselves weren’t great. Some were too lean, others were too fatty. I had worried about that to begin with - small town life often means you take what you can get as far as food quality. Regardless, they were definitely edible, and people liked 'em.
Next time, I’m planning ahead, and will order decent ribs from the butcher. This was a throw together party, so there was no time to do it.