Peter wrote:
Hi all. I'm going to try an experiment and I'm giving you a chance to talk
me out of it. It's based on pulling together various threads/suggestions on
doing ribs:

I got about 3 lbs of ribs, St. Louis cut. I placed the rack in a plastic
bag and poured a quart of vanilla coke in there. It sat overnight. In the
morning I took them out, patted them semi-dry and put a rub on, wrappped
them in plastic and put them back in the fridge for 5 hours. Meanwhile I
took the coke liquid and put it on the stove and reduced it down to a thin
syrup and added a small amount of bacon grease (Cardiologists please look
away).

I've got a ECB and intend to do them a couple hours bone up, flip them and
glaze the meat side with the coke/grease and go for another couple of hours.
Then I'll see what's happening and take it from there. I want to finish
with a tomato based bbq sauce at the very end.

Any thoughts? Am I going to wreck a good piece o' meat (or have I already)?
Any suggestings for this grasshopper along the way?

Thanks everyone. This is a great group and I've learned much from all of
you.

Peter

I think you've already ruined the ribs...so long with coke (phosphoric acid) on
them. They're probably already "cooked".

BOB

Hi all. I'm going to try an experiment and I'm giving you a chance to talk
me out of it. It's based on pulling together various threads/suggestions on
doing ribs:

I got about 3 lbs of ribs, St. Louis cut. I placed the rack in a plastic
bag and poured a quart of vanilla coke in there. It sat overnight. In the
morning I took them out, patted them semi-dry and put a rub on, wrappped
them in plastic and put them back in the fridge for 5 hours. Meanwhile I
took the coke liquid and put it on the stove and reduced it down to a thin
syrup and added a small amount of bacon grease (Cardiologists please look
away).

I've got a ECB and intend to do them a couple hours bone up, flip them and
glaze the meat side with the coke/grease and go for another couple of hours.
Then I'll see what's happening and take it from there. I want to finish
with a tomato based bbq sauce at the very end.

Any thoughts? Am I going to wreck a good piece o' meat (or have I already)?
Any suggestings for this grasshopper along the way?

Thanks everyone. This is a great group and I've learned much from all of
you.

Peter

Sounds good to me until the tomato based sauce. I would think a sweet
mustard sauce instead of tomato.

chef


"Peter" wrote in message
...
Hi all. I'm going to try an experiment and I'm giving you a chance to
talk
me out of it. It's based on pulling together various threads/suggestions
on
doing ribs:

I got about 3 lbs of ribs, St. Louis cut. I placed the rack in a plastic
bag and poured a quart of vanilla coke in there. It sat overnight. In
the
morning I took them out, patted them semi-dry and put a rub on, wrappped
them in plastic and put them back in the fridge for 5 hours. Meanwhile I
took the coke liquid and put it on the stove and reduced it down to a thin
syrup and added a small amount of bacon grease (Cardiologists please look
away).

I've got a ECB and intend to do them a couple hours bone up, flip them and
glaze the meat side with the coke/grease and go for another couple of
hours.
Then I'll see what's happening and take it from there. I want to finish
with a tomato based bbq sauce at the very end.

Any thoughts? Am I going to wreck a good piece o' meat (or have I
already)?
Any suggestings for this grasshopper along the way?

Thanks everyone. This is a great group and I've learned much from all of
you.

Peter

Peter wrote:
Hi all. I'm going to try an experiment and I'm giving you a chance to talk
me out of it. It's based on pulling together various threads/suggestions on
doing ribs:


It's too late to talk you out of it, since you already started it.


I got about 3 lbs of ribs, St. Louis cut. I placed the rack in a plastic
bag and poured a quart of vanilla coke in there. It sat overnight. In the
morning I took them out, patted them semi-dry and put a rub on, wrappped
them in plastic and put them back in the fridge for 5 hours. Meanwhile I
took the coke liquid and put it on the stove and reduced it down to a thin
syrup and added a small amount of bacon grease (Cardiologists please look
away).


At least spares are not expensive. Not much is lost, money wise.

I've got a ECB and intend to do them a couple hours bone up, flip them and
glaze the meat side with the coke/grease and go for another couple of hours.
Then I'll see what's happening and take it from there. I want to finish
with a tomato based bbq sauce at the very end.


The cooking times are about right.

Any thoughts? Am I going to wreck a good piece o' meat (or have I already)?
Any suggestings for this grasshopper along the way?


AFAIK, coke has sugar and the sugar will burn the meat. This is why
ribs are sauced just as they finish up. Sounds like you have already
ruined them. But you have learned something. Now you know one thing to
not do :-).

Thanks everyone. This is a great group and I've learned much from all of
you.


Experimenting with bbq is a good thing. Hard to get great ribs without
trying something new.


Happy Q'en,
BBQ

Peter

I'll see how it goes. On the BBQ FAQ, one of the mops has sugar in it, one
has grape juce (sugar) and two use Worcestershire Sauce which contains
molasses and corn syrup. So is a mop with sugar in it inherently going to
caramelize or is it that my coke thing is so sugared that it's "over the
top" (so to speak and pardon the pun)?

Peter


AFAIK, coke has sugar and the sugar will burn the meat. This is why
ribs are sauced just as they finish up. Sounds like you have already
ruined them. But you have learned something. Now you know one thing to
not do :-).

Peter wrote:
I'll see how it goes. On the BBQ FAQ, one of the mops has sugar in
it, one has grape juce (sugar) and two use Worcestershire Sauce which
contains molasses and corn syrup. So is a mop with sugar in it
inherently going to caramelize or is it that my coke thing is so
sugared that it's "over the top" (so to speak and pardon the pun)?

Peter


AFAIK, coke has sugar and the sugar will burn the meat. This is why
ribs are sauced just as they finish up. Sounds like you have already
ruined them. But you have learned something. Now you know one
thing to not do :-).

If you're determined to mop the ribs with the coke reduction, wait until the
ribs are done cooking. Mop them while they're hot and you'll get the glaze
you're looking for, without the burnt black sugar effect you'll get if you
mop half way through the cook. And let us know what you think of your
experiment. Barbecue is all about trial by fire.

Jack Curry

OK, 5 1/2 hours later.... Too sweet. Duh, you'll say. Vanilla coke! Ok.
guilty as charged. Half the rack had a nice pull back from the bone, the
other half didn't. I think that was the flap of meat. It had a nice crust
but really wasn't too bad. Mainly, it didn't grab as much of the smoke as I
would have hoped, wasn't as tender as I would have hoped but was a C+/B-
overall. I put some aside and thought I'd let it sit overnight and do a
slow warm tomorrow and see what gives. Thanks to all for the advice, doubts
and slams. You'z guyz is smart.

Peter

Peter wrote:
Half the rack had a nice pull back from the
bone, the other half didn't. I think that was the flap of meat.

Yep, shoulda cut the meat flap off. Take a visit here to see how to prep
ribs before cookin. Lotta good advice on othe preparations too.
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/ribselect1.html
--
-frohe
Life is too short to be in a hurry

Peter wrote:

OK, 5 1/2 hours later.... Too sweet. Duh, you'll say. Vanilla coke! Ok.
guilty as charged. Half the rack had a nice pull back from the bone, the
other half didn't. I think that was the flap of meat. It had a nice crust
but really wasn't too bad. Mainly, it didn't grab as much of the smoke as I
would have hoped, wasn't as tender as I would have hoped but was a C+/B-
overall. I put some aside and thought I'd let it sit overnight and do a
slow warm tomorrow and see what gives. Thanks to all for the advice, doubts
and slams. You'z guyz is smart.


Your mistake wasn't using soda as a marinade, IMO. I use Dr Pepper on
brisket and it works well. Your mistake was re-using the stuff as a mop.
Live n Learn, and major bonus points for trying something new.

--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com

I've brined with salted coke and it came out well, but I think the reduced
coke will be way too sweet. I'd also lower the temp to about 270 and cook
them indirect for about 7 hours. My experience with mopping with tomato
sauce is that it doesn't taste as good to me as using a dry rub and having
the sauce separate at serving time.

You might want to just taste the reduced coke first and maybe try on part of
the ribs to see what you think.

Ralph

"Peter" wrote in message
...
Hi all. I'm going to try an experiment and I'm giving you a chance to
talk
me out of it. It's based on pulling together various threads/suggestions
on
doing ribs:

I got about 3 lbs of ribs, St. Louis cut. I placed the rack in a plastic
bag and poured a quart of vanilla coke in there. It sat overnight. In
the
morning I took them out, patted them semi-dry and put a rub on, wrappped
them in plastic and put them back in the fridge for 5 hours. Meanwhile I
took the coke liquid and put it on the stove and reduced it down to a thin
syrup and added a small amount of bacon grease (Cardiologists please look
away).

I've got a ECB and intend to do them a couple hours bone up, flip them and
glaze the meat side with the coke/grease and go for another couple of
hours.
Then I'll see what's happening and take it from there. I want to finish
with a tomato based bbq sauce at the very end.

Any thoughts? Am I going to wreck a good piece o' meat (or have I
already)?
Any suggestings for this grasshopper along the way?

Thanks everyone. This is a great group and I've learned much from all of
you.

Peter

Ralph wrote:
I've brined with salted coke and it came out well, but I think the
reduced coke will be way too sweet. I'd also lower the temp to about
270 and cook them indirect for about 7 hours.

Wow. Seven hours seems a bit long at 270F for the average rack of St. Louis
trimmed.

snip Ralph's post
On 22-Mar-2004, "Dave Bugg" deebuggatcharterdotnet wrote:

Wow. Seven hours seems a bit long at 270F for the average rack of St.
Louis
trimmed.

The last batch I documented took 5 hours. NBS pit space was shared by
2 racks of untrimmed spares, 2 butts and a picnic. Picnic took the longest
at 9-1/2 hours. Cooked over lump with orange and oak (logs) for smoke. I
foiled the ribs after 1-1/2 hours. Big mistake. I did it to control the
smoke
on them. I'd been getting too much. Had to try it, but should have
wrapped only one rack. (Foil wrapped ribs = ruined ribs.)
--
M&M ("The problem is that no matter what you do, there's
Sombody that won' t like it much") Tom Clancy