We eat with our eyes first, and first appearances, no matter where I am, are important to me. I want you to be able to eat an entire rack of ribs down to the bone, without removing any undesirable piece from your mouth, and I don’t want people to have to struggle with hunks of fat or gristle in a sandwich. We take off the membrane on pork and beef ribs and trim off any extraneous fat that won’t render during the cooking process. Even if we’re at an event where we’re cooking a pallet of ribs, we still take the time to examine and trim every single rack.
If you’re cooking multiple pieces of meat, try to keep their weights the same. If one rack of ribs, for example, weighs 2 pounds and another weighs 3 pounds, they’ll be done at different times. Never assume if one piece is done, they’re all done. Even when two pieces of meat weigh the same, the structure of the meat can vary, and each piece can take a different amount of time to thoroughly cook. You have to feel and/or take the temperature of each piece of meat.
Portion the meat into manageable pieces that fit properly on the cooker. Depending upon what size cooker you’re working with, you can cut racks of ribs in halves or thirds, separate the point and flat on a brisket, or portion butts into smaller pieces. Cook chicken or turkey in pieces if you can’t comfortably fit a whole bird. This allows the meat to cook in less time and gives you even more control over grill space.
Put the meat on the cooker when it’s cold. Meat takes on smoke until it reaches an internal temperature of about 140°, so putting it on cold and controlling the rise of temperature allows it to cook slowly and begin breaking down the connective tissue, while taking in the proper amount of smoke. After 140°, smoke will begin accumulating on the outside of the meat. That’s when meat gets oversmoked and tastes acrid.
On large-muscle cuts and those without a sufficient layer of external fat, we like to use a mustard slather (page 31), which doesn’t add flavor as it mostly cooks away, but helps the rub adhere to the meat and provides a layer of protection.
When we see black bark on large-muscle meats—a butt, shoulder, or brisket—we know we’ve taken that smoke flavor through the meat, and that’s a good thing. But on smaller, thinner cuts of meat, such as ribs and poultry, a rich mahogany color is more desirable; black usually means the meat is burned. Meat blackens when you’ve used too much rub, or had heavy bark on the wood you used to smoke, or if your heat was too high.
The meat should be tender, but have some structure and not turn to mush. With a pork rib, for example, you should be able to take a clean bite and feel a little tug. You don’t want the meat to fall off or come completely away from the bone. That means the meat is overcooked or has been foiled for too long.
Wrapping ribs in foil to help achieve tenderness is advocated by a number of barbecue authors. I’m against this practice. I jokingly say, “I used to wrap my ribs, until I learned how to cook ’em right.” Simmering ribs in a foil packet, filled with apple juice or other liquid, essentially removes all of the smoke flavor you so carefully infused, and it can turn the ribs to mush very quickly. If you learn to manage the fire, you’ll never have to use foil.
A Thermapen digital thermometer (see page 76) costs $60 to $100, but when you’re investing your time and efforts into what you’re cooking, that’s a small price to pay for dead-on accuracy.
Barbecue is an art, not a science. There is no hard-and-fast rule dictating a set cooking temperature or length of cooking time that will deliver perfectly cooked barbecue. Every piece of meat, every piece of equipment, every fire is different. In the barbecue recipes in this book, we’ve given you some ranges of cook time on page 86, but these are guesstimates.
When the meat is done, the thermometer should glide in as though it’s sliding into a warm stick of butter. If it hits a hard spot, then hits another, the meat is probably okay to eat but isn’t properly cooked and isn’t quite as tender as it should be. This is a major mistake most people make. They go by the temperature and don’t account for the structure of the meat itself. Sometimes just 20 or 30 minutes more will mean the difference between a good piece of barbecue and a great one. For ribs, we go strictly by feel.
When you’re taking the temperature of the meat, you want to be in and out of the cooker quickly. There’s a reason for the old saying, “If you’re lookin’, you’re not cookin’.” Every time you lift up the lid, you add 15 to 20 minutes to your cooking time. After enough practice, you will become confident enough so that you know what is going on inside that cooker.
There are always two temperatures to consider inside the cooker—the ambient temperature and the temperature of the meat itself.
The built-in thermometers on charcoal cookers and grills are notoriously inaccurate. Even the high-end cookers, such as the Primo and the Weber Summit, provide readings that, while more trustworthy, tell you what the temperature is near the sensor rather than down where the meat is, which is much closer to the hot coals and can therefore be 20° to 30° higher than up near the thermometer.
Solutions: Option one is to use your Thermapen (see page 76) to measure the temperature in the top part of the cooker, near the built-in thermometer, by sticking the probe down through the exhaust vent at the top of your cooker. Note that temperature. Then measure the temperature at the grate level, where the meat is sitting. Hold the Thermapen just above the grate. That’s the important temperature. Place the probe of the Thermapen inside the cooker and close the lid, so the end where you read the temperature is sticking outside. Note the difference in that temperature and the one taken at the top of the pit. If you’re going to rely on the built-in thermometer, always remember to make a mental adjustment for the real temperature near the meat.
Option two is to go a little more high tech and get yourself a ThermoWorks Smoke. This kit allows you to simultaneously measure the temperature of a piece of meat and the ambient temperature of your cooker. And it does it remotely, no less, using a portable monitor. At $99, you get a big bang for your buck.