First Ribs

[boblazaar]

Hey All, so I did my first ribs tonight. Preheated to 250, had the ribs in the fridge for 18 hours with a rub, in saran wrap. Loaded up 3 hours of smoke, the Bradley hit 250 so in the went. Lowered PID to 225.

Once the door opened I knew the temp would drop, but all the way down to 165 shocked me. Went ahead and watched and the Bradley never got back up above 180 for three hours. Kept on anyway and pulled em out, wrapped in foil and back in for 2 hours, got up to 195. After 2 hours, pulled em out and sauced em, back in for an hour. Got up to 205.

The looked good, tasted good but man were they tough. had to use a knife!

My Bradley has an AUber PID and upgraded burner. Did I do something wrong? It was 10 degrees celsius here, so 48 ish F. No wind but a tiny bit of rain.

Any help is appreciated! Attached pics so I don't be the Unicorn guy!

[GusRobin]

I would:
1) check the plugs to make sure they are properly seated. They may seem so, but unplug and re-plug.
2) check if anything else is on the same circuit that may be drawing power.
3) Did you use hot water in the water bowl?
4) Did you leave the ribs at room temp before putting them in?
5) did you have your vent open?

[Habanero Smoker]

Cooking at those low temperatures your ribs are not going to get done in six hours. The 3-2-1 is just a guideline. I use a bamboo skewer to test for tenderness. If it slides in and out with little resistance they are done. Some use a temperature probe, but I find that they are so smooth I can't determine the amount of doneness with them.

Below is a link to some trouble shooting tips:
Bradley FAQ's

If you used a second element as the additional heat source check to see if the second element is heating. Also recheck your PID settings.

[TNRockyraccoon]

You might also check the temp setting knob on the smoke generator. The PID will require it to be set to high and if you accidentally bumped it while loading the smoker it could be the reason for slowed recovery times.

As mentioned, one of the biggest lessons I've learned with smoking is you must cook to the correct internal temps and tenderness and that times listed in recipes are merely guidelines and can be quite different from your local conditions and results.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

[boblazaar]

See below for answers...I am fine with meat temps, its the inablilty to hold a temp that is perplexing me.

I would:
1) check the plugs to make sure they are properly seated. They may seem so, but unplug and re-plug. - pugs were good
2) check if anything else is on the same circuit that may be drawing power. - - Only The Bradley
3) Did you use hot water in the water bowl? Yep
4) Did you leave the ribs at room temp before putting them in? - Yeah, they sat at room temp for 2 hours
5) did you have your vent open? 7/8 open.

[Habanero Smoker]

If your ribs were as tough as you stated, using the cabinet temperature you cooked at, they were undercooked to achieve a proper doness.

[TedEbear]

It's hard to see in your pics but I didn't see any meat pulling back from the bones.  A guide I use is when the meat pulls back 1/2" or so from the tip of the bone they are on their way to being done.  It looked like yours had a ways to go.

[Saber 4]

Not relevant to your tough ribs but it looks like you let your puck bowl run dry which is not a good thing as it keeps the pucks from smoldering with bitter smoke, keeps temps up in cabinet when replaced with boiling water and helps prevent possible grease fire's in the bowl.

In addition to looking for the bone to pull back, it has been suggested to me that I use a small bamboo skewer inserted between the bones to see how tender the meat is before pulling it out.

[mywifeishot]

I had the exact smame problem last weekend in Las Vegas and it was 103 degrees outside.  Checked all the same stuff.  Was stuck at 185ish for at least 3 hours then finally got to 220 for another 3 hours and they were soooo dry.

[KyNola]

boblazaar, in your OP you indicated your Bradley has an "upgraded" burner.  Since you didn't identify if your upgraded burner is an added second Bradley element or a different element completely such as a 900 watt finned element it is a little difficult to accurately troubleshoot your issue with heat recovery.  Best guess is your PID is improperly set or your upgraded burner is not working properly.  Did you verify your upgraded burner was functioning?  I see an additional switch added to your smoke generator which leads me to believe that you added a second Bradley element that you can turn on and off.  Any chance you forgot to turn it on or it accidentally got turned off?

One additional question, what were you utilizing to monitor the temp in the tower?