Too Tender Ribs?
My smoker has been dormant for too long. Far too long. This weekend I jumped at the tiniest chance to fire it up, and smoked some ribs for Tamar, Andrew, and Rachel. Once again, all I could get at the local butcher were the gourmet back ribs, which (as I’ve said many times before) aren’t my absolute favorite. These were decently meaty, though, and had a good amount of fat.
I followed the usual routine – rubbed ‘em the night before with my usual mix of salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder, paprika, brown sugar, celery seed. Into the fridge, out of the fridge, on at around 9:30, off at around 2:30. A good amount of time for ribs this size.
Everyone agreed these were the best ribs I’ve ever made. You can see from the pics below that they got a wonderful crust and the pink… well, it was all smoke ring. Booya. Flavorful, juicy, smoky, and falling off the bone. Literally. 
Actually, it was kind of a problem for me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved ‘em. But part of the rib eating experience is picking it up and gnawing it off. On a good rib, you don’t have to work hard, and the meat just slides off the bone.
With these, I couldn’t even chop up the rack without most of the meat falling off. No one else seemed to think this was a problem. If I had it to do again, though, I’d take them off 30 minutes earlier, hoping they’d basically be just as tender and wonderful, but stay on the bone.