Smoking on a Rainy Day. Baby Backs and Fatties all around.

Welcome to another episode of the Backyard Smoker. Today we have my first attempt at baby back ribs, as well as the concoction known in barbecue circles as a 'fatty'. Here are a few pics of the day's preparation.

First of all I have to get something off my chest. I can't take myself seriously saying 'fatty' over and over again. If you read message boards and recipes you will see a lot of variety in how these things are prepared. For mine, I took about two and a half pounds of ground pork, flattened it out, and laid down layers of cheddar cheese, asiago cheese, green onion, and fresh chopped mushrooms. This gets rolled into a log, rubbed, and smoked.

I had some improved performance with my set up today and am really getting the hang of the WSM. I started two chimneys of Royal Oaks lump, emptied the two 40's below into the water pan (next time maybe we'll try something along the lines of Old English), and got some apple chips soaking.

  

I put the two fully lit chimneys in with one unlit full chimney. The minion method worked well for me today, and when I was done I actually had enough coals left unlit that it may be enough for our next minion method cook.

I threw together a quick simple rub  made mostly of paprika with some salt, black pepper, garlic and onion powder, cumin, and a small amount of cayenne pepper. I mopped about halfway through with cider vinegar.

While all this was going on my better half wrapped up what I believe was some beets and a squash and put them on the bottom rack of the smoker

OK, enough with the veggies. The main courses came out beautifully. After about three and a half hours the fatty (ugh) was up above 190 degrees, while the ribs were around 165. I took the loaf off and let it rest in a cooler while I gave the ribs another half hour after being quickly brushed with a little sauce. 

While I don't want to use the word 'dry', the fatty was great with lots of different intermingling flavors. Though it held together well, it could have been maybe a little more moist. I think the move next time will be to add it halfway through whatever else I am cooking. The mushrooms were the star of the show. They went in fresh and dry and came out moist and flavorful. It also had a great smoke ring, perfect to make an amateur meat photographer look like a seasoned pro.

The ribs were good. They were very dense and more moist than my usual spare ribs. They were great though not completely falling off the bone. I might let them stay on until 180 for future menus. Last pic below is the scraps.

One interesting thing was when I took the fatty off and left the ribs on,, the temperature flew up through the roof and I had a hard time keeping it under 300, while I was smoking in the 250 range. I guess that's just from the difference in heat-absorbing mass in the smoker pre and post-fatty? Maybe a 1 to 1 lit to unlit ratio is in order.

Cheers-

-R