Brand new old guy

Take a look at this site. It tells you all about ribs . A little less than half way down the page is a link that shows how to trim St. Louis style spare ribs . Hope this helps!

As far as how to rub or marinate them I would just follow Smokin's Pork Ribs 101 found at the top of this page where the links are: Smokin Okie Barbeque Guide. You can hardly go wrong. I followed it my 1st time and the spare ribs turned out so good I ate them dry and forgot to try out CookShacks BBQ sauce!
If it were me, I'd save the vacuum marinating for the chops and chicken breasts. Thats just me though. Dont let anyone talk you out of experimenting. Thats how the great chef's of the world come up with great new recipes!

Hi Bud what happened with the brisket? I have my first one in now. Thanks Shane

Hi bud, Welcome.

What smoker do you have? It makes a different when we're giving advice and trying to help. there are some great forum members here who will be happy to help.

My two cents, you listed chicken, brisket, ribs and trying to do them all first. We're here and we can help but my recommendation...just one thing first. That way you won't be disappointed with all of them not coming out.

Work on the ribs you have. Just trim up the ribs, season, and smoke. Heck, you don't have to trim them at all if you don't want. Don't worry about buying more until you experiment on these. And I don't vaccum marinade anything.

Unless you're wanting to throw them away, go ahead an cook with the ribs. If there is meat hanging down on the underneath side, that would what many call the brisket flap (yes, confusing). You can trim that off.

Without a picture, can't tell if you have a full rack of spares or trimmed spares (St. Louis). How much does one slab weigh? If they're about 4 inches long in the middle, probably trimmed.

As for vaccum bagin with marinade, etc. Long term exposure to marinades, which are acidic by nature, even while frozen can really mush up the meat.

Smokin'

Thanks GeiyserQ, I got all that printed out now on how to prepare ribs.. Is real Interesting. Well Smokin, I got one of those Brinkmann smokers from Wal Mart. Had it a couple years and have only done Turkey at Thanksgiving and I didn't know what I was doing. Just put the turkey on for 1 hour per pound and ate it.. In the last couple of weeks I have become more interested in smoking and your web site caught my eye. I went to the junk yard and got a couple thermostats off some elect stoves. I can only go down to 170 degrees which is kind of disapointing after reading post on this site of how to smoke bacon. Need a lower temp I guess. I also drilled a hole in smoker and put in a permanent thermostat( From Old Smokey) to read smoker temp. Supprisingly the numbers on the thermostat knob came out real close. I drilled another hole and put in rubber gromlet to run Polder through then bought an insulation blanket for a water heater and wrapped the smoker. Seems like it might work, I dont know yet, but it does maintain temp.
After looking at the pictures in the above site sent by GeiyserQ, I think that meat must be the skirt extending past the end of the bone. I guess it smokes quicker so I will cut it off and pull it sooner and old Skeeter Dog and I will have something to munch on. Dont worry, she will eat anything.
I will forget about marinading the ribs and things in a vaccum bag and just try it your way. Maybe I will try a few chicken breast and pork chops as you suggested. Maybe cut the marinade with half water.
Sure would like to try some of that High Mountain Bacon Cure if I can find it and get my smoker to a lower temp for bacon smokin. Found some High Mountain jerkey cure but cant find the bacon cure.
Hi Diep57. At the time I cooked that brisket I had no clue as to what I was doing. Looks like I have found a good web site for help. Thank you guys very much.
PS. can I also use the tear method to tell when the skirt meat is done?