St Louis Style Ribs

Last Saturday after dicking with the membrane on two slabs of ribs for 45 minutes I was ready to quit this crazy hobby. Tonight I have a new "rules to live by". Before ever trying something new in life, always check for a youtube video first - you are sure to save lots of the time and wasted effort.

This evening, Brent and I discussed where to get our ribs and whether we should trim them St Louis style ourselves or let the butcher. This lead me to youtube and a leap forward in my Q knowledge. I have attached a link to a video below that is great for trimming St Louis style ribs. I'm now convinced to trim the whole slab myself.

Now about that 45 minute thumb wrestling match with the membrane last Saturday. After watching the video I have come to the conclusion that the butcher at YB Meats removed the first membrane for me - what a nice young man. Maybe next time he will tell me that. You see I learned there are actually two membranes. The first appears relatively easy to remove. The second is on the bone and if removed the rib bones will fall out when you cook the ribs. I'm convinced I was trying to remove the second membrane, hence my headaches and part of the reason the bones fell out when we were done cooking.

Moral: a new rule to live by - always consult youtube first.

Enjoy the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYMNLMQmM4s

Handling our meat

one would think men of our experience would know how to handle our meat, Sat night's over "tong-ation" of the ribs and chix showed otherwise.

At walgreens, I found gloves for handling hot items and bought a set. basically like oven mitts but shaped more like cotton gardening gloves - $10 a piece. I also bought a box of 100 vinyl food handling gloves - they won't handle heat (do any?) but the hot handling gloves are washable.

Rubbing - read some articles that showed using apple juice and mixtures with it (Jack Daniels?) and applying with a spray bottle works well - spray it first, add rub, and spray again. I bought two spray bottles in case we want to go this route.

check out BBQpirates website - they look like they've done well without all the industrial equip...

Will the Weber arrive?

It just may happen - that is my quest to out E-Bay Mr. Todd on the infamous WSMS. After an all-in winning bid that beat Todd's price by enormous $9 and a few emails to follow up on where the hell it was, the guy finally emailed me back with tracking info. According to UPS, it should be on my doorstep tonight!

Let's just hope it doesn't look like some newbie picked it up and dropped it out of a back of a pickup when we unvail it. Hope to have it set up & plan to run heat through it Tue or Wed night as well as rub some dirt on it (whilst we'll look more qualified this time, shiny stuff probably doesn't vogue well)...

So, sounds like we will have 3 bullets & the kettle - this might work - think we need to figure out how to cook the chix thighs - I like the idea of smoking it on a bullet and finishing it on the kettle but I read a few competition sites that actually used a kettle for all.

Thermometer - A personal experience

A big thanks to Lance for posting the information on installing a thermometer in your Bullet. Fortunately, Lance and Todd understand a few basic economic principles that prevented us from chasing too far down that rabbit trail of government style spending. Here's the deal: a $15 thermometer should not require a $45 uni-bit for the installation. That only make sense if you are responsible for spending tax payer money.

Lance and I both got our thermometers installed with a simple bit - 3/8" in my case. Before installing mine I tested it to see if it was properly calibrated - held it in a pot of boiling water and it appears to be properly calibrated. For the record, I ordered mine from kck.com - good prices and quick delivery. I'm going to order another one for my kettle. For the kettle I will probably get the one that goes up to 750 degrees.

Here's a picture of my handy work - notice the symmetry of the thermometer and vent relative to the handle.

Add a thermometer to your bullet

Here is a great post with picturess that shows how to drill the hole and add the thermometer.

http://tvwbb.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8680069052/m/2430080894