St. Louis Ribs - I left some room for improvement

[brewersfan73]

I could use a little help to see what I could have done differently. I was hoping to get some moist tender ribs that weren't quite fall of the bone (aren't we all!). Here's what I did and the results:

- 3 racks of St. Louis cut ribs from Costco (about 3-3.5 lbs each)
- Rub consisted of sugar, salt, & spices, and I used yellow mustard as binder
- Aimed for a 3-2-1 process
- Used PB Competition pellets in the hopper and also a smoke tube with pellets & hickory wood chips
- Smoked them for 3 hours at 225, spritzing each hour with apple cider vinegar
- Sprayed some apple cider vinegar and apple juice in the foil, and wrapped each rack - bumped up to 250 degrees
- At about 1.5 hours, I went to check on them and they were fully cooked and falling off the bone
- Carefully unwrapped them, trying not to lose too many bones along the way. Slathered with Sweet Baby Ray's and cooked them at 300 for about 20 minutes.

These were our first St. Louis ribs in quite a while. We usually do baby backs, but I wanted to try something different.
- Meat was tender & juicy, and we liked the flavor, so I'm happy with the rub, smoke, and sauce
- Lots of cartilage bits - am I wrong to assume that this should be trimmed out for St. Louis cuts? I was okay with it, but very off-putting for the rest of the family.
- Very fatty - is this the nature of spare ribs in general? Or did I not get it rendered correctly? Did I steam them too long in the foil? Did I need higher grill temps? Or is this what spare ribs are supposed to be?
- Since they were already fully/over cooked, I didn't want to leave them on too long after I sauced them. Should I have cooked them longer and/or higher temp after saucing to get rid of some of the fat?
- Would I have had better luck just not wrapping at all?

I'd love to hear what other people's secrets are to overcome these couple of issues.

Start of the cook:

Ready to wrap after 3 hours:

Ready to eat (half rack on top is not sauced):

 

[Mike From R.I.]

I could use a little help to see what I could have done differently. I was hoping to get some moist tender ribs that weren't quite fall of the bone (aren't we all!). Here's what I did and the results:

- 3 racks of St. Louis cut ribs from Costco (about 3-3.5 lbs each)
- Rub consisted of sugar, salt, & spices, and I used yellow mustard as binder
- Aimed for a 3-2-1 process
- Used PB Competition pellets in the hopper and also a smoke tube with pellets & hickory wood chips
- Smoked them for 3 hours at 225, spritzing each hour with apple cider vinegar
- Sprayed some apple cider vinegar and apple juice in the foil, and wrapped each rack - bumped up to 250 degrees
- At about 1.5 hours, I went to check on them and they were fully cooked and falling off the bone
- Carefully unwrapped them, trying not to lose too many bones along the way. Slathered with Sweet Baby Ray's and cooked them at 300 for about 20 minutes.

These were our first St. Louis ribs in quite a while. We usually do baby backs, but I wanted to try something different.
- Meat was tender & juicy, and we liked the flavor, so I'm happy with the rub, smoke, and sauce
- Lots of cartilage bits - am I wrong to assume that this should be trimmed out for St. Louis cuts? I was okay with it, but very off-putting for the rest of the family.
- Very fatty - is this the nature of spare ribs in general? Or did I not get it rendered correctly? Did I steam them too long in the foil? Did I need higher grill temps? Or is this what spare ribs are supposed to be?
- Since they were already fully/over cooked, I didn't want to leave them on too long after I sauced them. Should I have cooked them longer and/or higher temp after saucing to get rid of some of the fat?
- Would I have had better luck just not wrapping at all?

I'd love to hear what other people's secrets are to overcome these couple of issues.

Start of the cook:

Ready to wrap after 3 hours:

Ready to eat (half rack on top is not sauced):

They look awesome.

 

[txflytyer]

first scrape the the 321 method cook by feel, 2 hours is too long in foil. St Louis style ribs do have more cartilage, only spritz after your bark is set, check with a tooth pick between bones if there is no or little resistance they are close to being done. wrap ( do not add liquid to foil as that will steam them )if you do add anything raw sugar for only a short while about 30 to 45 minutes until desired softness then you can glaze with sauce for 10 minutes

i always cook my ribs @250 on a rack elevated above the main grate. go to a restaurant supply store buy 2 shallow 1/3 steam table pans to elevate your grill grate, they can be filled with water to add moisture to the cooking chamber, as pellet cookers are inherently dry heat.