I've been rebuilding the back deck, so the Q equipment has been out of
commission for a while. I finally got enough of it done to fire
something up over the weekend.

I'd read an article in the local paper about Steven Raichlen's method
for ribs. The significant part was:

"Turns out Raichlen's favorite way with ribs, to "smoke-roast" them, is
a happy medium between the pit and the grill. Done over indirect heat,
with the charcoal piled on the sides and the ribs set over a drip pan
in the middle, they cook at about 325 degrees, which gives them some
crispy edges but a nicely tender interior. The meat doesn't fall off
the bone (and it's not supposed to, really) but easily pulls away from
it."

The entire article is below, sorry for the long URL, which probably
wrapped badly.

<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lif.../fastfood/stor
y/5970EA47835F0D188625733D0066F47E?OpenDocument>


Anyway, I decided to give that a try. I set up the Weber kettle (I just
had one rack of spares, so it wasn't worth bothering with the WSM. I
did it just like when I'm roasting chickens, I'm not sure exactly what
the temp is, but somewhere in the 320F range. That's with charcoal in
the sidebaskets, the meat in the center over the drip pan, and the
bottom vents wide open.

I went real basic with just some salt and pepper on the meat. I didn't
bother with mops and stuff, in fact I seldom do.

As the article says, it got done fast. I checked the ribs after two
hours, and they were done. As far as the end result, the meat was
pretty moist. There was some browning, more than typical, and the very
end of the rack with the small bones was a tad crispy (although that's
not bad). Unfortunately, they didn't seem as smoky as usual.

When back for another round later (don't judge me), the ribs right out
of the refrigerator seemed to have more fat than typical. This isn't
really noticable when they're nice and warm from the fire. I don't know
if this rack was somewhat fattier, or the quicker method renders less
fat through the cook.

My conclusion is, this wouldn't be bad if you were in a hurry, but I
think I stick to somewhat to lower (250-275F) temps and longer time for
the most part.



Brian

--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)