Mozella
New member
I've been cooking ribs for about 60 years on all sorts of equipment using all sorts of methods. But in my old age, I really don't feel like it's worth it to get carried away with a complicated cooking or preparation method. Yesterday I cooked a rack of ribs on my new BP1000 using apple pellets.
I got the grill started while I put a light dusting of Tony Chachere's and a moderate dusting of smoked paprika on the ribs, my standard seasoning. No rubbing, just dust it on. At 11:00 a.m. ribs went on the upper rack and I put a foil lined half sheet pan on the grill to catch the drippings. Once I got the grill going I set it to 200 degrees, but it wasn't producing any noticeable smoke. So I switched to P mode. I found P-5 to give me about 185-190 F with the grill in bright sun on a warm day. later, when the grill was in the shade, I switched back to P-4.
It held 185-190 degrees very well. Every two minutes or so, the grill put out a nice bit of smoke for 30 seconds or so and then it diminished for a minute and a half until the next cycle. I was happy to see it repeat this cycle all day long. I didn't quite understand the P mode after reading the owners manual, but now I see just how effective it is. Constant smoke all day would be too much, but the kind of smoke I get from my Grilla Ceramic cooker usually doesn't last as long as I would wish and I find myself trying to stuff chunks of wood down past the ceramic diffuser plate and coaxing it onto the tiny area of glowing coals. Often the added wood chunks remain unburned at the end of a long cook, so they don't do any good at all. The Pit Boss in P mode is just perfect with significant puff of smoke for roughly a quarter to a third of the time on a short two or three minute cycle.
About every hour I used a plastic squirt bottle with some olive oil and vinegar to wet down the ribs. They looked fine after a few hours so I decided to experiment by not turning them at all. At the 6 hour and 15 minute mark I brushed on my favorite commercial sweet BBQ sauce and I turned the heat up to 350F. I also set a pan of baked beans on the grill. I brushed the ribs two or three more times over the next 45 minutes at which point I shut down the grill. I left the ribs sitting there while I emptied the pellet hopper and did a little clean up. Total cooking time right at 7 hours with a few minutes more as the grill went through the shut down procedure.
Then onto the cutting board and right to my plate. No turning, no wrapping, no complicated temperature fiddle-farting around, no wrapping them up like a baby and putting them in an insulated beer cooler. Just season the ribs, cook them slowly for a long time, slather them with sauce if you wish and raise the heat right at the end, and eat. My wife of over 50 years pronounced them as my best effort. I would agree.
The repeated intermittent moderate smoke over more than 6 hours was really nice. The ribs were well cooked and very tender without falling off the bone (something neither my wife or I like) and they had a nice smokey flavor without tasting like somebody's house just burned down. The beans were good too.
We don't eat as much as we used to, so we had some left overs. This evening we stripped the meat off the bones, chopped it up, and served it on a bun with a big spoon of slaw and a blob of BBQ sauce; Memphis style. It's our favorite way to enjoy a pork BBQ sandwich without staring at 8 or10 pounds of slow cooked pork butt and wondering what we're going to do with all that meat. There's enough for my lunch tomorrow and then we're done with pork until the next time. I'm surprised at how easy it was to cook ribs on the Pit Boss and how well they turned out.
I got the grill started while I put a light dusting of Tony Chachere's and a moderate dusting of smoked paprika on the ribs, my standard seasoning. No rubbing, just dust it on. At 11:00 a.m. ribs went on the upper rack and I put a foil lined half sheet pan on the grill to catch the drippings. Once I got the grill going I set it to 200 degrees, but it wasn't producing any noticeable smoke. So I switched to P mode. I found P-5 to give me about 185-190 F with the grill in bright sun on a warm day. later, when the grill was in the shade, I switched back to P-4.
It held 185-190 degrees very well. Every two minutes or so, the grill put out a nice bit of smoke for 30 seconds or so and then it diminished for a minute and a half until the next cycle. I was happy to see it repeat this cycle all day long. I didn't quite understand the P mode after reading the owners manual, but now I see just how effective it is. Constant smoke all day would be too much, but the kind of smoke I get from my Grilla Ceramic cooker usually doesn't last as long as I would wish and I find myself trying to stuff chunks of wood down past the ceramic diffuser plate and coaxing it onto the tiny area of glowing coals. Often the added wood chunks remain unburned at the end of a long cook, so they don't do any good at all. The Pit Boss in P mode is just perfect with significant puff of smoke for roughly a quarter to a third of the time on a short two or three minute cycle.
About every hour I used a plastic squirt bottle with some olive oil and vinegar to wet down the ribs. They looked fine after a few hours so I decided to experiment by not turning them at all. At the 6 hour and 15 minute mark I brushed on my favorite commercial sweet BBQ sauce and I turned the heat up to 350F. I also set a pan of baked beans on the grill. I brushed the ribs two or three more times over the next 45 minutes at which point I shut down the grill. I left the ribs sitting there while I emptied the pellet hopper and did a little clean up. Total cooking time right at 7 hours with a few minutes more as the grill went through the shut down procedure.
Then onto the cutting board and right to my plate. No turning, no wrapping, no complicated temperature fiddle-farting around, no wrapping them up like a baby and putting them in an insulated beer cooler. Just season the ribs, cook them slowly for a long time, slather them with sauce if you wish and raise the heat right at the end, and eat. My wife of over 50 years pronounced them as my best effort. I would agree.
The repeated intermittent moderate smoke over more than 6 hours was really nice. The ribs were well cooked and very tender without falling off the bone (something neither my wife or I like) and they had a nice smokey flavor without tasting like somebody's house just burned down. The beans were good too.
We don't eat as much as we used to, so we had some left overs. This evening we stripped the meat off the bones, chopped it up, and served it on a bun with a big spoon of slaw and a blob of BBQ sauce; Memphis style. It's our favorite way to enjoy a pork BBQ sandwich without staring at 8 or10 pounds of slow cooked pork butt and wondering what we're going to do with all that meat. There's enough for my lunch tomorrow and then we're done with pork until the next time. I'm surprised at how easy it was to cook ribs on the Pit Boss and how well they turned out.
