First Ribs on FEC-100

This is what I used to weigh each rack.

Here are the racks weighed and placed in the numbered platters. If you enlarge the photo, you can see the each rack's weight and positon.

Rubbed and ready to go in Fridge for 3 hrs then on to the FEC-100. Racks 1 - 3 will go onto second shelf from top of smoker while the larger racks will go on the second shelf from the bottom of the smoker.

Racks 1 - 3 after cooking 4 hours at 240*. I glazed these with a mixture of Pepper jelly, Turbinado sugar and Apple juice.

This is racks 4 - 6 cooked 5 hrs. at 240*. These were also glazed with a mixture of Pepper jelly, Turbinado sugar and Apple juice.

Another great smoking session with lots learned. First three racks were great with the next 3 more tender although not as tasty.

Nice!

What kind of pepper jelly did you use?

Do some temp mapping on your FE. You'll find slight variances between spots on the rack.

I'll rotate my racks/ribs if I'm doing a big batch. I'll also position smaller ribs together and bigger ribs together so they come off together. Key about weighing the ribs is too know the smaller ribs (likely) will come off faster than the others.

Best part about experimenting, is eating the experiment.

Ribs 1-3 look good, 4-6 look very dark. Which did you prefer?

The Pepper Jelly I used was "Green Mild" from Tabassco. Down here in Louisiana we tend to like our food very spicy. My guests requested next time I use the Red one which is hotter.

Ribs 4-6 were very dark. I suspect it was because they were in the smoker for an extra 1/2 hour with the glaze on them. They were more tender than the smaller ones, but no one cared for the flavor of the rub. Might have just had too much of it on them, don't know. I did have the ribs "grouped" by size. I kept the same numbering and placement as I had on the platters just for the monitoring of the results. Still lot's to learn and I guess I need more temp probes to map out my smoker better.

Sounds like you are working a plan,to get where you want to be.

One thought would be to just season up your slabs,as you are preheating the cooker,and then go right to the cooker-rather than 3 hrs in the refrig.

Especially on injected ribs,they can get "hammy" tasting.

As you said,not too much meat on ribs,and easy to overseason.

Yep,as to the dark ribs,any sugar can darken quickly,if left much time,or much temp.

Lots of folks may just put them back in at around 200º for 15 mins,to set the glaze.

May try some more this Sat. and apply what I've learned so far. Those first 3 racks were as good as any I can get around here. Man, I love my FEC100!!! Never thought I could create bar-b-que this good, much less,with this little experience.

Hmmm...

I figured you were using Texas Pepper Jelly. I haven't tried the Tabasco stuff, but I'll look into it. I'm just now getting into the pepper jellies due to Texas pepper jellies. Before I had some BBAAAAAD experiences over and over from folks around here and had almost put them in the part of my mind that gives an ideomotor effect of grabbing the stuff from them and throwing it in the trash as soon as I heard the words "pepper jelly".

But, luckily I'm open to try new jellies again.