Country Style Ribs

We bought some country style ribs at Costco yesterday to cook today. At first we thought we would just grille them on the gas grille, but then I decided I would rather put them on the smoker.

I started the smoker by putting it on "smoke," and let it run for about 15 minutes before putting on the meat. In a class I took recently by Konrad Haskins at the BBQ Institute, I learned the best way to turn a good cut of pork into ham is to put the rub on the night before and leave it in the refrigerator over night. So, after starting up the smoker, I put the rub on and when the smoker had a good start, I put the meat on the smoker grille.

Konrad promotes the use of a hot, spicy, mustard spread over the pork, followed by a liberal sprinkling of rub. The meat doesn't have a mustardy taste. Konrad says the mustard simply adds to the complex of flavors the meat will have once cooked. It also provides a medium for the rub to stick to; so, I promptly forgot to use the newly purchased bottle of mustard I bought yesterday......

The meat was smoked for about an hour, then I turned the pellet feeder to the notch just below 275. (Konrad's suggestion for Traeger's.) The meat smoked at this setting for about an hour, then it was put into an aluminum pan, coated with apple juice, covered with aluminum foil and left in the smoker for another hour because we had invited our daughter and her family over and it was getting late. I originally thought I would be able to cook this meat in about 3 hours.

The meat was tasty, but it was not tender. Pork is "done" at lower temps than where it needs to be to be "fall of the bone" tender. For that, the internal temp needs to be closer to 180-190 degrees. When I measured the temp, it was running in the low 170's; but as I said earlier, we were running out of time.

Next time, we'll get'er done perfectly!