Cue-Vide Baby Back Ribs

For Memorial Day this year I wanted to try something a little different and combine two cooking techniques that I frequently use, smoking and sous vide.  My local grocery store had baby back ribs on sale for the holiday weekend so I bough a rack and went about trying to plan my cook.  After doing a web search figure out time/temps for baby backs I settled on 149°f for 24 hours.

After removing the rack of ribs from the cryovac packaging they came in they were rinsed, cut in two (so they'd fit in my 12 quart Cambro) and the membrane removed by loosening a bit with a skewer, grabbing it with a paper towel and peeling it off.  For the rub I mixed the remains of two types of commercial rubs I had in the pantry from last season, Bad Byron's Butt Rub and McCormick's Brown Sugar Bourbon Seasoning in roughly equal portions.  I filled up a 12 quart Cambro container to the 10 liter mark, attached my ChefSteps Joule circulator, put on the lid I had cut to fit the circulator and used the Joule app to set the bath temp to 149°f.  While the bath was heating I liberally applied the rub mix to the ribs and vacuum sealed them with a FoodSaver.  Because this was going to be a long cook I double bagged the ribs, first each 1/2 slab was vacuum sealed in individual 8" wide bags then those were put in to an 11" wide bag and vacuum sealed again.

Ribs tend to float in the bath so I used a couple of large, stainless steel spoons to weigh down the bag during the cook.  Once the bath was at temp and the ribs added I set the timer on my Joule app for 24 hours and just let them soak, checking back occasionally to make sure the bag was still fully submerged and repositioning the spoons when needed.  The cook was started on Saturday and when the timer went off on Sunday we were on the other side of town.  This is when wi-fi connectivity comes in handy, when the timer went off I was able to lower the set temp of the bath down to 130°f remotely so the ribs wouldn't overcook and get mushy by the time I finally made it home a few hours later.  The ribs were removed from the bath and chilled overnight.

On Memorial Day morning I grabbed my Bradley Smoker from the storage shed and hooked it up using my homemade PID controller set to 250°f.  There were still a few pecan bisquettes left in the hopper so I left those and added some Jim Beam bisquettes on top.  The ribs were added once the chamber temp got to 225°f, below are some baked beans with a little diced onion, green pepper and garlic added.  After an hour on smoke the ribs were sauced with a bottled barbeque sauce (Simple Truth Barbeque Sauce) that I doctored by adding a little balsamic vinegar from Old Town Oil and some of the rub mix.  The ribs were put back on the smoker for about 20 more minutes for the sauce to set.

After bringing them in the ribs and beans were put under the broiler for a few minutes to get a little char on them and to make sure the sauce was nice and set.

Here are the ribs after cutting, they're extremely juicy and tender.  Easy to bite through, as close to the "perfect bite" I've seen on barbeque competition shows as I've ever been able to do at home.  I was concerned that putting rub on at the beginning would make the finished ribs too salty, but that was not the case.  They had just the right salt level and the flavors of the rub permeated the meat.

The final plate, next to the ribs are the smoked baked beans, gochujang coleslaw (bagged coleslaw mix with a dressing of mayonnaise, gochujang, sherry vinegar, celery salt, salt, shichimi togarashi, minced dry garlic and minced dry onion) and a Caesar salad.  

It's here!: Bradley Original Smoker Edition.

For years I've had a charcoal "bullet" smoker, and while it can produce some great meals it has a lot of drawbacks.  The main thing is that it's difficult to maintain temperature, doing so requires constant attention and fiddling which can be a challenge for long cooks.  As a result, after an initial flurry of smoking things I really haven't used it much over the past several years.  Lately I've been seeing a lot of barbecue programs on TV and have become re-interested so I started looking for a new smoker that would be easier to use and require less attention.  I looked at several types of smokers, fueled by charcoal, propane and electric.  In the end, a warehouse deal from Amazon sealed the deal and I ordered a Bradley (new) Original Smoker.  The Bradley is an electric smoker that uses sawdust pucks called "bisquettes" for the smoke.  The bisquettes are loaded in to a hopper and are fed one-by-one on to a heating element in the smoker chamber to produce smoke at a rate of one every 20 minutes.

Here is a video of the unboxing.

One thing that I didn't know until the day after ordering was that the smoker itself does not come with any of the required bisquettes, so I ordered a variety pack which was set to be delivered the day after the smoker itself.  I had intended on smoking a whole chicken, had it prepped, rubbed and ready to go.  Unfortunately the bisquettes didn't come until late in the evening so I had to go ahead and just roast the chicken in the oven rather than let it sit overnight with the rub.  Still wanting to make sue of the smoker I went out the next morning and picked up some baby back ribs.

Preparation was simple, I pulled the membrane off the bottom of the rack of ribs and liberally applied a rub (salt, pepper, sugar, paprika, cayenne pepper, celery salt, lemon pepper) then allowed it to sit for a few hours in the refrigerator.  While the ribs rested I set up the smoker, turned it on and put in 5 bisquettes for the seasoning process.    That involved about an hour of smoke at temperature to drive off any manufacturing residues and get the smoker ready for business.

The night before I had run all the removable pans, grates and bowls through the dishwasher.  Assembly of the smoker is pretty easy, the drip pan goes on the bottom and a water filled metal bowl is put in place.  The water-filled bowl is there to catch the still smoldering bisquettes as they are pushed off the heating element by the next one, this keeps ashes from flying up on tot he food.  Above that is a heat deflector followed by up to four metal racks.  The smoke generator slides in the side and attaches to a couple of metal pins, there is a power cord running to the smoke generator box and another running from that box to the smoking chamber for the main heating element.  Controls are simple, just a power switch and a dial that allows you to set the temperature from low to high.  There is also a button to advance the bisquettes.  Once you get the smoker loaded and closed you'll have to baby the temperature a bit by adjusting the dial and top vent, but once you get it where you want it seems to be pretty stable.  I put the ribs in and adjusted the temperature to about 225 degrees f.  For smoke I used a mix of apple and mesquite bisquettes for the first few hours, then again for the last 20 minutes or so.  All told the ribs were in the smoker for about 6 hours.

The ribs turned out pretty darn good, and since the smoker was running anyway I put the chicken I had roasted the night before in as well for a little smoke flavor.  All in all I'm pretty happy with the Bradley smoker.  I feel that I'll be able to do things with it that weren't possible with the old bullet smoker, like leaving it running unattended while I'm away at work or asleep for long cooks.  In order to improve the temperature stability I'm looking at wiring up a PID controller with a thermocouple and solid state relay to let me dial in a desired temperature and not have to worry about overshooting it when I'm not around.  Those parts should be here tomorrow.  I'm thinking of picking up a bone-in pork shoulder roast for this weekend to make some barbecue pulled pork.  Other things I want to try out before the end of summer is short ribs and eventually brisket.  That was something I was afraid to even try with the bullet smoker, but now may be a possibility!