Help Smoking Ribs

[Mayweather]

Hi all. I tried to complete my first smoke yesterday on my 4 rack digital. However, 6-7 hours later only 1 of the racks was ready and falling apart with the tear test. The rack closest to the heat source was ready whilst the other 2 racks were not ready. I was smoking at a set temp of 230F.

Is this a common problem, and how do i get around this as i will be cooking multiple racks next weekend for a party so i am a little worried.

Appreciate any advice.

[Wildcat]

Rotation, rotation, rotation.

[TedEbear]

Yep - switch the racks around every couple of hours.

[tskeeter]

Mayweather, as you have found, Bradley smokers experience some interesting heat distribution patterns.  They make sense when you think about it.  Bradleys are hottest at the bottom and coolest at the top.  And hotter at the back, above the heating element, than against the door.
That's why Bradley recommends rotating racks top to bottom and rotating the racks 180 degrees during a cook.

Understanding the heat distribution, I use it to my advantage as much as possible.  I put larger, thicker pieces of meat lower in the smoker where it is hotter and the meat will cook faster.  Smaller pieces of meat, or things like cheese, I put on the upper racks where it is a little cooler.  Softer cheeses, which are more prone to melting, I'll put on the top rack, closest to the door because that is the coolest part of the smoker.

In order to even out the heat distribution from the back of the smoker to the door as much as possible, there are a couple of simple things you can do.  First, make sure that your v-tray is completely up against the back wall of the smoker, so that the heat is distributed by the v-tray instead of running freely up the back wall of the smoker.  Second, several forum members have crimped the vents in the back half of their v-tray partially closed to force more of the heat into the door side of the cabinet.

[Dano]

I use the 3-2-1 method and the middle 2 hrs are usually in the kitchen oven. Helps ensure a more even distribution. 

[Mayweather]

Thanks for the help. How often do i need to rotate the racks, and as you mentioned i simply take the top rack and put it on the bottom, and then move the rest up? Would doing it every hour be too much?

Also, how do i cook ribs for people who may be arriving later? For example, lets say my ribs are ready at 3pm, but i have my guests coming at 4:30pm. Can i simply leave these in the smoker and reduce the temperature right down to something like 150F to keep them warm?

[tskeeter]

My practice is to rotate about every 1 1/2 - 2 hours.  (Every time you open the door, it extends the cooking time by about 15 minutes.  So you want to avoid opening the door too often.)

The rotation pattern varies a bit, depending on how many rack you have full and whether you smoker is a four rack or a six rack.  In my six rack, assuming that I've got four racks in use, I will usually switch the top and bottom racks, and then the middle two racks.  During the process, I also turn each rack 180 degrees.

To hold cooked meat until the guests arrive, many forum members will FTC (foil, towel, cooler) the meat.  When I've FTC'ed pork shoulder, I found it's still too hot to handle with your bare hands after as much as four hours in the cooler.  For ribs, I'd probably cut the cooking time short by about 15 minutes, place the ribs in a stack (to maximize heat retention), wrap the stack of ribs in heavy duty foil, then wrap the stack of ribs in something like a bath towel (many layers of newspaper or a blanket will work, too; the idea is to have lots of air spaces), then place the stack of ribs in a cooler, the microwave, a cardboard box, or similar type of confined space that is close to the size of the stack of ribs, to minimize air movement. 

Since the ribs are stacked together, and wrapped to keep them warm, they will continue to cook just a little bit.  Because the ribs are wrapped in foil, they will not dry out, like they might have a tendency to do if you leave them in the smoker at low temperature. 

When your guests have arrived, apply some sauce to the ribs and put on the grill for a  few minutes to caramelize the sauce, and you're ready to eat. 

[manfromplaid]

FTC  foil towel cooler    wrap the ribs in foil  double wrap  then wrap a couple towels around them and place in a cooler or your microwave to hold the heat in  will stay at temp for  couple hours

[manfromplaid]

you type faster then me  lol

[Mayweather]

Thanks for the help guys. I will give this another go on the weekend and this time actually rotate the racks!

Also, what is the best way to warm up the unit? I believe that you can only set the temperature on my 4 rack digital and you cant actually see what the temperature inside is. This is problematic as i don't know when to put the meat in. Do you put both the smoker and the oven on at the same time so that they both heat up together? Also how do i stop the biscuits advancing whilst the smoker is heating up?

Thanks for your help.

[dave01]

warm up both the heater at once. put the pucks in after it's warmed up and then advance them

[Mayweather]

Thanks for the advice. how do i know when the oven is hot enough to put the ribs in given i can only set the temperature, not actually test it?

[Davemartin88]

Thanks for the advice. how do i know when the oven is hot enough to put the ribs in given i can only set the temperature, not actually test it?

If you don't want to buy a temperature probe, a cheap oven thermometer inside the oven while it heats up will work. They have many inexpensive version that set on a rack or even hang from the rack- just put one in the middle of the oven. I have the Bradley Digital and use the Maverick 733 probes like many on this forum use- one for the oven and one for the food. There is quite a variation in the temp using the stock oven controller but the probe lets you know what is going on- I find I have to set the Digital oven temp about 10 degrees high to stay in the range I want to keep the oven but I'm sure outside temperature impacts this as well. I'm new to the smoker but really recommend some type of thermometer/probe in the oven to better know what is going on.

[tskeeter]

Mayweather, I just warm up my smoker by time.  When it's close to 100F in the summer time, I plan for about 1/2 hour or so.  In the cold of the winter at about freezing, with a bit of a breeze, I'll plan for an hour.  Note that I also use a foil wrapped brick, that sits in the bottom of my smoker, as a heat sink.  Using a heat sink helps with heat recovery when you open the door or when you put large amounts of cold food into the smoker.

I always run both the puck burner and the heating element when warming up the smoker.  The puck burner adds 25% to the heating capacity of the smoker.

Side note:  I also run the puck burner after the smoking period is complete in order to speed heat recovery and to help with cooking large amounts of meat, such as 15 pounds of pork shoulder.

Also, use boiling, or close to boiling, water in your puck bowl.  That way, the smoker isn't trying to heat the water in your puck bowl while it is also trying to provide heat to cook your food.

[Jim O]

I usually use the A-MAZ-N tube,but also put the puck burner on,without pucks,to add the additional heat source. As mentioned by tskeeter,the xtra 25% heat helps.