Pictures from the 10-10-2021 Pork Rib & Belly Bite Smoke
Rookie moves man, Rookie moves
10-10-2021 Notes on Baby Back Ribs and Pork Belly Bites
- My daughter has been asking for me to cook burnt ends for several months. It was her request for something unique to do on the smoker. Now, traditional burnt ends, when done well, are a few bites you get from edge of a brisket – heavy bark, just enough fat rendered…they look more like a meteorite and less like a heavenly bite that they are. Now, there are several different ways to recreate “burnt ends” with cubed chuck roast, pork belly…just about any classic tough piece of meat that becomes tender when treated to low and slow smoking. For this cook, we did a pork belly. Now, I didn’t want to smoke just pork belly for dinner…so I threw on a Costco pack of loin ribs.
- For this cook, it was time to fire up the offset. And that was my rookie move. Time. I let the morning slide away…by the time we got back from Costco – which, as it turns out, tends to be rather PACKED on Sundays – it was 1pm. I should have called an audible at this point and direct cook the ribs over coals. This whole process takes far less time than getting the offset started and a coal-bed established. But a direct coal-cook means…no belly bites. Or at least the way I was thinking of doing them. Given more thought, I could have hung the pork belly…Another lesson there…
- It took a solid 2 hours to go through my cleaning/prep ritual and get a coal-bed established. By this time, it was 3:00 and I had just got the ribs on. I had not yet sliced the belly into strips which probably took me another 30 minutes to prep and season. More Time.
- Now, I wasn’t an utterly complete idiot on this cook. I think I’ve started to dial in the size of splits that keeps the offset humming at 250-275. Every once in a while, the temps would creep up on me…an easy adjust on the coal bed and the temps would settle back down – basically, I’d move a log that was supposed to be pre-heating…and caught on fire…away from coal bed.
- I could have probably ran the smoker just a bit higher…instead of 250-275, shoot for 275-300. The ribs and belly took longer than I expected…about 4 hours prior to saucing and then another 45min for sauce/wrap. That’s a lot of time for this lean cut of ribs. To contrast…when I did ribs in the vertical, I’m thinking 3.5 hours with 30min for saucing is the sweet spot.
- Thoughts on the Sauce. While the ribs and belly were smoking, the Mrs. and I made a double batch of the KC style BBQ sauce I’ve been making – based on the recipe from Meathead. This sauce is 5 parts sweetness to damn near everything else. For a rib sauce, I might thin it out just a little so that the sauce isn’t overpowering the meat. Don’t get me wrong, it a tasty sauce…and it’s very sweet.
- So after all this, how did everything turn out? For the ribs, I’ve been cooking ribs in this style for a bit and while they took longer than I thought they would, the ribs were great. They weren’t dried out…if anything, a little to much pronounced sauce flavor.
- Now for the belly bites. My main audience thought they were terrific! I take comfort from that…she really liked ’em. I took inspiration on this cook from Chud’s BBQ (great YouTube channel, by-the-way). I cut the pork belly into strips to make them easier to manage on the smoker. I seasoned ’em with salt, pepper, and a pork rub (a variant of Meathead’s Memphis Dust). For myself, they were good. They could have been better.
- Getting the Better Bite. A couple of notes for next time. First off…these are h’orderves. You eat a couple. You don’t eat a whole plate of these things. So…when trimming up your pork belly, if you get a full size belly (like what they sell at Costco), save half to 2/3’s for bacon. I made 9 pounds of belly bites!! The other thing: trimming. Some pork belly sections have a reeeeaaaallly thick layer of fat. No one wants to eat a bite that is 3/4’s pure fat. So don’t be afraid to trim and trim and trim some more. If you can’t imagine eating it, trim it and save it for something else. /McCoy: for god sakes man, don’t throw it away.
- Bites On the Smoker. The strips worked pretty well for ease of handling. I do like the idea of smoking them for about 2 hours, then cubing them and putting them back on for an hour. I’m thinking this would reduce the cooking time, and firm up the sides… Also, I didn’t get the nice caramelization that you get if you left them on for an hour instead of 30 min. Again…the Time mistake.
- Final Thoughts. As crunched for time as it may sound, running the smoker was actually very relaxing: observe the color of the smoke coming out of the stack…watch the temps…and in between toss the ball with my son. A great afternoon overall. To make things easier on the cook itself…Time, Time, Time. Prep the meat in the morning or the day before. If I’m running the offset with splits, give myself 2 hours before I need to get the meat on. Don’t be afraid to call an audible. If you’re short on time, be flexible…if the cook simply can’t happen within a reasonable time, call it and take your lumps – It’s far easier than presenting a plate of BBQ to a pack of ravenous carnivores who have been waiting 2 hours after you said dinner would be ready…I was lucky the BBQ was good…that’s an easy way to lose a finger.
Pictures of 9/25 Pork Loin Rib Cook
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Ribs seasoned mid-morning, chilling until the Smoker is up to temp.
Hanging Ribs in the LSG Warmer Box
Some notes on the pork loin rib cook on 9/25:
- Started around noon, getting the fire basket going. I used the majority of a bag of lump charcoal and put a couple of tumbleweeds underneath to get going. All of the doors were open. Probably could shaved some time off the start up by closing the doors after 20 or so. Once I closed the doors and went inside for a brief moment…I came back out and the charcoal bed was roaring. Got the temps down under 300 and then dialed it in to about 250 degrees. All vents were closed except one which I tuned here and there, leaving only a 1/4 to 3/8’s of an inch open. Same with the air in-let.
- Seasoned the ribs a few hours earlier, about mid-morning. I’m interested in seeing if an overnight dry brine is noticeable. Light salt, with Memphis Dust.
- About 2 hours in, temperatures started dropping. Needed shake up the coal bed a bit. Then temps stayed pretty solid for the rest of the cook.
- Made a KC-style sauce to go with. Nothing spicy so everyone could enjoy – though this sauce could really shine with a few hot peppers…
- Temperatures varied from 250 to 300…tried to stay as close as possible to 275. Not a lot of big temp swings…the biggest one was the coal bed shake up.
- At 3.5 hours, I was ready to sauce. Here I made my biggest gaff. I used our big bertha pan for making the BBQ sauce…this pan was a little to big for the smoker front table, so I opened the main chamber and put the whole pan in, while I pull 3 of the 6 ribs. Once the ribs were on a tray, I left the main chamber open and used it as a shelf for the pot of sauce. This allowed O2 to get the coal bed going and before I knew it, the flames were up and the temps were above 500 degrees!!!
- Along with the increase in temp, the remaining 3 ribs in the warmer are getting roasted now. I wanted ribs-two-ways, sauced and dry. I think this style lends itself to the sauce…
- I never did get the temps back down under 300, despite closing everything. The sauced ribs were back in for the last 30 min.
- Next time, sauce at 3:00 and don’t open the main chamber. 3 hours, 30 min might be a sweet spot for time. All in all, not a bad length cook.
- One of the sauced ribs actually fell off the hook, indicating it was overdone. None of the sauced ribs were dry. The dry-rub ribs were good, with some being really overdone/burnt.
- Baked beans in the main chamber. The main chamber was at about 150 degrees…a nice temp for keeping baked beans warm. I think starting ’em on the stove and getting everything hot, then transferring to the MC. There’s a lot of smoke within the MC and Vertical (temps in the Vertical were around 100 degrees, smoke cheese territory?) Might make for some tasty smoke flavor. Being all charcoal, it shouldn’t have any of the bitterness associated with lower temp smoking (of wood splits)
- There was a nice smoke ring and a noticeable, yet not overpowering smoke flavor. If I’m going to sauce…I think next time, just do salt at first. Maybe pepper too. The thought is, the small granules of paprika, garlic powder, etc, get in the way of the smoke adhering to the meat.
- All-in-all, a very successful first cook in the Warmer. We were lucky to share these with our good friends Tim and Maya!
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