This weekend I decided to smoke some beef chuck short ribs. This was my 2^nd time smoking beef ribs and I did them a little differently than the last time. I think they turned out a little bit better this time around.

The key things I learned about smoking the ribs is patience. Beef Ribs take a long time to smoke, it took me just about 8 hours to cook them and I still think they could have been smoked a little longer.

I also learned that trimming the top layer of fat on these ribs helps a lot with the bark & smoke ring forming on the meat. The first time I smoked these ribs, I didn’t trim the top layer of fat off. They were still good, but I had to eat around a lot of the chunks of fat that didn’t melt into the meat. The bark was also on those chunks of fat, since the bark formed on the top layer of fat. Trimming the top layer of fat off, formed a better bark & allowed me to actually enjoy the bark because it formed on the actually meat and not the fat.

Here are pictures to show you the difference between one chuck rib smoked with the fat layer and one without the fat layer:

**Smoked Beef Chuck Plate Ribs With Top Fat Layer Intact	**Smoked Beef Chuck Plate Ribs with Top Fat Layer Removed

If you have any questions that aren't answered on here feel free to ask me in the store any time, or you can reach us on the phone while we are open at 757-547-2161. I will do my best to answer any questions you have. 

I don't claim to be an expert smoker. I've only had a smoker for about 5 months now and am doing a lot of learning myself. I figured I will start to post these blogs/recipes onto our website to share my journey with everyone. My mistakes, what I figured out works for me, what doesn't work. Thanks for reading. My ingredients, preparation, and cook process are below. Hope your Beef Ribs turn out great!

Ingredients:

• Beef Chuck Plate Ribs (Bone-in Short Ribs, Texas Ribs)
• Plowboys Bovine Bold Seasoning
• Chigger Creek Oak Chunks or Chips (I used chunks)
• Charcoal

Preparation:

1. Trim the top layer of fat off the ribs. You don’t need it to be perfect, some fat will be left on because it runs into the meat so much. Just try to trim it as much as you can. If you want us to trim it for you while you are here in the store, we can certainly do that for you.
2. Apply the Bovine Bold Rub to the ribs. Make sure to pay special attention to the sides, as well. Don’t be bashful with the rub, make sure you are coating the entire rib top to bottom.
3. Cover the ribs and put into the refrigerator to rest overnight. Make sure to cover them, the beef will dry out on you in the fridge overnight if you don’t cover them.

Cooking Method:

1. Prepare your Smoker or whatever cooking device you are using. I use the Weber Smokey mountain 22” smoker. It uses charcoal for fuel and wood chunks/chips can be added to the charcoal. I used Chigger Creek Oak Wood Chunks for the Beef Ribs.
2. My Smoker has a water pan at the bottom that I did fill up before I started the smoker. It helped to keep the Beef Ribs moist & not dry out during the long smoking process. If you don’t have a water pan, you can always get a spray bottle, fill it up with water or maybe apple juice and then spray the ribs with it every hour or 2 to keep it moist.
3. I smoked the Beef Ribs at around 225-250 degreesF thru the entire process. I smoked the beef ribs for around 8 hours. I turned the beef ribs about every 2 hours to try to give everything an even bark/smoke ring.
4. Our target temperature we are trying to reach is about 200-205 Degrees Fahrenheit. You should use an instant read thermometer in the thickest portion of the ribs to check the temperature.
5. A good indicator that the ribs are almost done is when you insert the thermometer into the meat. It should slide into the meat, almost like putting it into hot butter. There shouldn’t be much resistance. If there is, then the ribs still need more time.
6. When the ribs are finished smoking, take them off and put aluminum foil over the top of the ribs and let them rest for 15-30 minutes.
7. Take the foil off, cut the beef ribs up and enjoy!

Raw Beef Chuck Plate Ribs Before Trimming or Doing anything to them	Beef Chuck Plate Ribs on the Smoker with Bovine Bold Rub on Them

Oak Wood Chunks on top of Weber Charcoal inside my smoker	The Finished Product - Smoked Beef Chuck Plate Ribs

Smoked Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings

This weekend I decided to smoke some chicken wings for the football games that were coming on. This was my 2^nd time smoking chicken wings and I think I’m getting a little better at it. With all things, practice makes perfect.

The key thing I’m learning is that you need to crispen the outside skin some kind of way, otherwise it’s extremely rubbery after smoking the wings. I use the hot coals on the bottom of my smoker. I put the cooking grate with the wings on top of the coals for about 5 minutes to crispen the skin. This left the wings with what looks like a slightly burnt texture in the pictures, but I’ll tell you what they were still amazing to me. Next time I’ll try to pull them off the coals slightly quicker to minimize the burning.

If you have any questions that aren't answered on here feel free to ask me in the store any time, or you can reach us on the phone while we are open at 757-547-2161. I will do my best to answer any questions you have. 

I don't claim to be an expert smoker. I've only had a smoker for about 4 months now and am doing a lot of learning myself. I figured I will start to post these blogs/recipes onto our website to share my journey with everyone. My mistakes, what I figured out works for me, what doesn't work. Thanks for reading. My ingredients, preparation, and cook process are below. If you are planning on cooking some wings, I wish you luck and hope they turn out amazing.

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs. of Chicken Party Wings
• 1 Bottle of Walkerswood Mild Jamaican Jerk Seasoning
• Chigger Creek Hickory Chunks or Chips (I used chunks)
• Charcoal

Preparation:

1. Get a plate and spoon. Open up the Walkers wood Jamaican Jerk and take some scoops and put it onto the plate.
2. Take a few chicken wings and put them onto the plate.
3. Coat the chicken wings with the seasoning. The more jerk seasoning you put onto the wings, the hotter it’s going to be. I apply a lot to my wings because I like them to be spicy. You don’t need to cover the entire wing though, just make sure the liquid of the jerk coats the wings.
4. I have a picture at the bottom with them on the smoker beforehand so you can see how much I applied.
5. Let them rest in the fridge as you prepare the smoker, grill, or oven.

Cooking Method:

1. Prepare your Smoker or whatever cooking device you are using. I use the Weber Smokey mountain 22” smoker. It uses charcoal for fuel and wood chunks/chips can be added to the charcoal. I used Chigger Creek Hickory Wood Chunks for the chicken wings.
2. I smoked the chicken wings at around 250 degrees F thru the entire process. I smoked the chicken wings for around 2½ hours. I turned the wings after about 1 hour into the smoke.
3. After the wings reached about 165-170 F I took them off the top of my smoker and put them directly over the hot charcoals to sear them. This process doesn’t take long, I left the wings over top the charcoals for all of 5 minutes, if that. You need to be careful because it can get away from you in a hurry and you will end up with burnt wings. As you can see in my pictures, some of mine are a little burnt because I left them on for seconds to long. That’s ok for me because I like them to be a little burnt on the outside. It’s a tricky process, but very rewarding if done correctly.

I have found that this helps get the outer skin crisper and not make it such a rubbery texture that you can get from smoking chicken. You could also probably broil them in the oven or use a regular grill if you have one. The skin really needs some direct heat applied to get it nice and crispy.

        4. Let the wings rest for a few minutes to cool off and then dig in and enjoy.

Pictures:

Recipe by Andrew Edmondson Backyard Smoker Enthusiast from Central Meats

Smoked Baby Back Pork Ribs

This Labor Day Weekend I decided to fire up my smoker and have another attempt at smoking baby back ribs. This was my third time trying to cook them. They finally came out just the way I envisioned and my guests and I were extremely satisfied with the end results. I decided to post what I did on here for others to see in case they wanted a little guidance. If you have any questions that aren't answered on here feel free to ask me in the store any time, or you can reach us on the phone while we are open at 757-547-2161. I will do my best to answer any questions you have. 

I don't claim to be an expert smoker. I've only had a smoker for about 4 months now and am doing a lot of learning myself. I figured I will start to post these blogs/recipes onto our website to share my journey with everyone. My mistakes, what I figured out works for me, what doesn't work. So here is what I did below, I hope your baby back ribs turn out just as amazing as mine did.

Ingredients:

• 1 Slab of Pork Baby Back Ribs (They usually weigh 2-3 lbs. per slab)
• 1 Bottle of Lotta Bull BBQ Diamond Dust Rib Rub
• Chigger Creek Apple Wood Chunks or Chips (I used chunks)
• Charcoal

Preparation:

1. Remove the Baby Back Ribs from the packaging and put them onto a cutting board, or any other clean surface that you want to work on.
2. There is a thin silver lining underneath the baby back ribs that is called the membrane. It’s tough/chewy and doesn’t taste very good, so I remove this ahead of time. We can do this for you at our store if you don’t want to do it yourself, or you can just leave it on and eat around it when you go to eat the ribs. It’s not too hard to remove, once you get it started. It peels right off as long as you peel it nice and slowly, too fast and it will rip and make things a lot harder for you. You can grab a knife to help try to get the membrane to start to peel.
3. Start to pour the Lotta Bull BBQ Diamond Dust Rib Rub onto the ribs. I use quite a bit, ended up using 1 whole bottle on 3 slabs of baby back ribs. I really focus on coating the entire rib, including the sides of them. I take my hand and rub it into the ribs, all over the sides/bottom of the ribs.
4. After applying the rub, I put the ribs in the refrigerator and let them rest for 2 hours inside the fridge. You can let them sit in the fridge overnight if you wanted. It’s not going to hurt anything.

Cooking Method:

1. Prepare your Smoker or whatever cooking device you are using. I use the weber Smokey mountain 22” smoker. It uses charcoal for fuel and wood chunks/chips can be added to the charcoal. I used Chigger Creek Apple Wood Chunks for the baby back ribs.
2. I smoked the baby back ribs at 225-250 degrees F thru the entire process. It took the ribs about 5 hours total, to be done. Their final temperatures were around 180-190 degrees F. Typically ribs need to be cooked to 190-205 degrees F. However, I used the bend test on my ribs to check to see if they were done. What is the bend test? Here is a link for you: https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/pork-ribs-recipes/are-my-ribs-ready-yet
3. I DID NOT wrap the baby back ribs in anything. I have done that in the past, wrapping them in aluminum foil and I don’t think I ever will again. I think it cooks the ribs to fast and they end up being tough and not as tender. Ribs need time to cook and work their magic. The lower and slower you cook them, the better they are going to be. Patience is key!
4. 2 hours into the cook I did turn the ribs and then after about another 1 hour I turned them again. It helps to get a nice bark around the entire rib.
5. Let the ribs rest for about 10-15 minutes before cutting. I added Head Country Original BBQ Sauce to my ribs. You can do that while they rest if you want. I added the sauce after I cut mine because some people don’t like tons of sauce on their ribs.

Pictures:

Recipe by Andrew Edmondson Backyard Smoker Enthusiast from Central Meats