Newbie needs help

[wine4et]

I tried smoking Baby back Ribs last weekend.  I smoked 1.5 racks cut into 3 pieces.  2 came out pretty good one came out tough.  I did not rotate the racks.  Is this important to do?

I cooked the ribs at 200 degrees for about 7 hours.  I accidently turned the heat off when I wanted to stop the smoker only.  They sat for about 1.5 hrs in the smoker.  when I realized what I had done , I turned the heat back on for 1 hour.  the smoker only got up to about 160 degrees.  do you think this affected the meat very much? 

I marinated the ribs in a beer brine with seasonings overnight prior to cooking.  I then put them in the smoker which had warmed up for about 1 hour.  After 2 hours I sprayed apple juice on the ribs, after another 2 hours I sprayed apple juice and put the sauce on, aftr 2 more hours I repeated with  apple juice and sauce.

The way I normally do ribs before the smoker to get the tender is to bake them in the oven wrapped in foil for 3-4 hours at 250, then finish on the bbq with sauce.  They come out very tender.  Is it possible to get the ribs to fall off the bone while smoking?  any hints or tips are greatly appreciated.

[Wildcat]

Welcome to the forum.  I recommend that you always rotate racks when doing more than one rack. (Top to bottom and front to back)  The primary reason is so that they all get done about the same time.  You can get away without the rotation but the lower rack will probably get done before the top.  I bet the lower rack was the one that was not tender.

With regards to accidentally shutting the system down, if you leave the puck burner going and simply do not use any more pucks, this problem will be resolved.  I will defer to the more experienced rib smokers regarding whether or not this affected the overall outcome of your ribs.  I suspect that this only prolonged the smoke/cook.

[chuck steak]

I offer the following, as I'm new to the BS myself. Did you score the tissue on back of the ribs or remove it??? Second, if they got to cool when BS went off,, they may have stoppped cooking and juices drained. I have have had that experence on the BBQ...or could have been old hog  :D (jk)