Pork Spareribs

[rsandler]

Re: Pork Spareribs

You can drop your temp down to about 170-180 and slow cook for about 6 hrs and they're drop off the bone fantastic.

That description make my mouth water just thinking about it. I already had a big dinner, but it almost makes me tempted to pull a couple leftover ribs out of the fridge...

Hmm, if 6 hours is about right for 170-180 degrees, then Faith is definitely right that I overcooked them doing ~7 hours at 225. Good to know. They were still quite tasty though. Kinda makes sense that if my Cooks Illustrated recipe had me doing 3.5 hours at 300, lowering the temp by 75 degrees shouldn't double the time.

[Laurentius]

Re: Pork Spareribs

You can drop your temp down to about 170-180 and slow cook for about 6 hrs and they're drop off the bone fantastic.

[rsandler]

Re: Pork Spareribs

Thing was, I couldn't decide if they were a little dryer than usual, or a little tougher (but only a little). But you may have something there with blaming the pig, actually--the layer of meat on those bones was certainly thinner than usual.

FWIW the recipe we've used in the conventional oven calls for a 300 degree oven, with 1 hour wrapped in foil, 1 hour unwrapped dry, 1.5 hours with BBQ sauce on, then 1 hour out of the oven wrapped in foil.

I think you're right on the timing of smoking though, I've been having the same thought. 'Course, I couldn't have done it this time because I picked up the hickory chunks and the chimney at HD while the ribs were already in the oven.

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: Pork Spareribs

Thinking cooked to long. Not long enough it would not have been so dry. One more thing ....it could have been one tough pig.

I think I would have smoked early then wrapped in foil. I think the last 1.75 opened did the drying out.

[rsandler]

Last week I tried roasting a rack of spareribs in my WFO, basically following a oven-roasted sparerib recipe from Cooks Illustrated. 5.5lb rack was rubebed with a dry bbq rub the night before. Placed them in the oven on a wire rack over a sheet pan with the whole thing wrapped in foil and the oven running about 225. After 5 hours, I lit up some chunks of hickory in a quick-start chimney, tossed them in the oven and took off the foil. Then cooked for another ~1.75 hours, took the ribs out, and wrapped them in foil to rest for 45 minutes before eating.

Result was very flavorful, and had a nice smoky flavor, but wasn't quite as tender and juicy as I've had it in the conventional oven (though still very good). I can't decide if I cooked them took long (and so dried them out) or too short (and so the collagen hadn't broken down enough to make them tender). Anyone have any ideas?