7/12/21 Meeting A Challenge Head On?

     Fourth of July weekend was spent at my mom's house and we had a good time doing what we do down there.  I talked about this a week ago or so, but what stayed with me most was that Baby A talked shit like he likes to do to me and told me that my brother made better ribs than me.  I was a little insulted but I also accept that I don't have control of my ribs and haven't worked on them like I have my brisket.  I find that although they have a good taste, they are usually dry and almost crispy but still fall off the bone easy enough.

    Well, I decided to study what I might be doing wrong and listening to a couple of youtube videos to see what I could do better.  First off, I lowered the temperature, I tend to grill them more than smoke them and the temperature on the grill is usually closer to 400.  This time I lowered my temperature down to 250 degrees and then lowered the ribs closer to the heat, I had been putting the ribs on the uppermost rack of the grill, but this time I put them in the middle, with the grates of the grill closed in the smoke position.  Another thing I did different was to remove the membrane on the backside of the ribs, which according to the video I saw blocks the smoke from getting into the meat.  Wife says I shouldn't worry about it, but I felt better removing it.

    The last thing I did was to season it well with Salt Lick seasoning and place on grill for 1 hour facing up.  After an hour, I flipped the ribs and they were facing down.  The last thing I did was after two hours, I wrapped them in foil and then smoked them for the remaining hour.  After the 3rd hour, I opened the foil trap and poured a good amount of BBQ sauce on the meat, hoping it would add to the moisture and complexity of the flavor.  There was a lot of moisture on the ribs with the backside pointed up and the moisture was captured in the folds of the meat which I was then careful to not spill it away as I wrapped the ribs in foil.  The last part was only for about 10 minutes of smoking, just enough to warm up the sauce.

    I thought the ribs were very good overall.  I had a hard time cutting them into pairs of bones as the meat kept coming off the bone as I cut them.  I can also say the meat was definitely moist compared to past efforts.  Baby A asked me "why do you care to impress me?"  It's not that I care to impress him, per say.  I want to be the best at whatever I do and to hear someone else does something I do better will bother me until I figure a way to beat them.  I am naturally competitive and hearing someone is better than me at doing something I enjoy is never going to be fun for anyone.