The JUICIEST RIBS Imaginable: Sous Vide Smoked Ribs

my friend came over yesterday and he says steve i sous-vided and then smoked some ribs on my smoker and they were the best ribs i've ever had in my life way better than any of your ribs that i've ever tried so i got a little bit triggered and i said blair sous-ving isn't real barbecue but then after swallowing my pride i did a little bit more research and it turns out that sous-ving actually might be a really great solution for making perfectly cooked ribs and i have the perfect occasion to test it out because my dad's birthday barbecue is this saturday so in this video i'm going to sous-vide and smoke some ribs show you guys how you can do it at home even without a sous-vide machine let's get smoking for this recipe i'm sous-viding two ways the first way is with my anova sous-vide machine in a water bath and the second way because i know that a lot of you guys don't have a sous-vide machine at home i'm gonna show you how to sous-vide using a pellet smoker more on that soon first i'm tearing the membrane off the back of the ribs and rubbing them with some heavy smoke white label i got from pit master barbecuesupply.com which by the way is an awesome place to get lesser-known competition rubs used by the pros that in my opinion are way better than the more popular barbecue rubs out there i'll link that site in the description box if you guys want to pick some up next i'm vacuum sealing the ribs in airtight bags this will help to keep all the juices and flavors locked in while they cook and most importantly it creates an airtight barrier between the sous-vide water bath and the ribs next it's friday night the day before my dad's birthday barbecue so i'm placing two racks of ribs in the sous-vide bath at 155 degrees fahrenheit and two racks on a pellet grill at 160 degrees fahrenheit in the water bath because that is the lowest temperature my pellet grill can hold them at my pro 575 can go down to 175 degrees fahrenheit that's the minimum temperature and i found that with this large aluminum pan full of water it can hold it at a constant around 160 degrees fahrenheit internal temperature of the water when it's set to 175 and that's pretty laser consistent although there are some fluctuations i saw it go up and down from about 158 to 160 161 and then it dropped to maybe 157 so it's not extremely precise like a sous vide machine but it's pretty damn close and now is a good time to talk about what is sous-viding and how it can really help you make perfect ribs sous-vide is a cooking method that involves sealing food in airtight bags and then cooking it in a water bath at a precise temperature this ensures that your food is cooked evenly throughout and eliminates the guesswork that often leads to undercooked or overcooked food with ribs the real trick is to get the perfect consistency so that the ribs are bite through and they're not too tough but they're also not mushy and they don't fall off the bone before they even get to your mouth the way you get them like that is you pull them off the smoker at the exact right time and often that takes years of experience to figure out because there's only a few minutes where it's that perfect consistency and you need to pull them off the smoker there's not a lot of wiggle room for error there's a lot of different tests for doneness for ribs one of them is you pick it up and it should bend like in a u-shape and the meat should tear off the top of the rib you can also do it by feel by touching it by probing it by sticking a fork in it you might look for the ribs to pull back there's so many different ways of checking for rib doneness but really it comes down to experience and that's why sous-ving is so awesome because we're cooking at a super low temperature over a really long period of time so that pull window or the window of time you have to pull it at the exact right consistency that you want is measured in hours and not minutes so it makes it much easier for a beginner or even an advanced pit master that just hasn't uh nailed ribs and really got them down to pull them at the right temperature and get the perfect consistency so that begs the question what is the perfect time and temperature for sous-vide ribs well according to this article by j kenji lopez alt the ribs are super meaty when cooked at 145 for 36 hours and they're more of a barbecuey type rib consistency that we're typically used to when cooked at 165 for 12 hours the higher the temperature the less time you need to finish the ribs so i decided to split the difference and do 155 degrees fahrenheit for 20 hours anyway after putting the ribs in their sous-vide baths i was feeling pretty confident in my research at this point and i really felt like i could make the best ribs possible nothing could really go wrong at this point wednesday nights are my nights to hang out with my friends and to dm a game of dungeons and dragons and i often enjoy a few beers while i'm doing it but what i don't like is waking up in the morning and still having to face all of my parenting duties and do a full-time job after having had a couple of beers the night before and that's why i'm so glad xebiotix sponsored this video xebiotix is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol which is responsible for rough mornings after drinking you just drink a bottle before your first drink of alcohol obviously drink responsibly pace yourself get a good night's sleep and then enjoy your next day feeling refreshed and ready to make the most of it basically some smart scientists realize there's this byproduct of alcohol and it's this toxic byproduct not dehydration that causes us to feel terrible the next day after drinking so z biotics breaks down this byproduct that builds up in your unprepared gut when you drink this is real science that works it's not like some random plant extract there's no off-the-shelf ingredients in it and best of all there's a 100 money-back guarantee if you don't like it i tried it a few times and after a night of having a couple of beers i woke up in the morning pretty refreshed and energized and normally i'd feel kind of drained but in this case i woke up and i felt pretty ready to take on the day you can get zebiotics for 15 off with my code in the description box below i recommend getting the six pack that's what i got it's a great deal and you'll have a couple extra to share with your friends click the link in the description box below and use code smoke trails barbecue at checkout go to xebiotix.com forward slash smoke trails barbecue and get 15 off on your first order today so it's been about 16 hours and i wanted to check the ribs ahead of time just in case they don't look good and i have to run out to the store and get some more ribs or if the bag is leaked or something it looks like the bag has held up okay it looks like there's actually a lot of liquid in the bag which is concerning because kind of like i'm boiling my ribs there's obviously no bark it looks like really i think i might have to run out and get some more ribs and just cook them normally is that actually true or is that i don't know you tell me do they look good they look fully cooked yeah like do they look good to you though they look like boiled ribs to me as you can see i had a lot of doubts and i was almost ready to go to the store and pick up some ribs and just smoke them the normal way but then i decided to phone up my friend and get some advice hey how's it going okay so i'm see i'm sous viding some ribs today for my dad's coming over for his birthday party and i was wondering how you like smoke no yeah they're already in the sous-vide they've been sous-viewing for like 16 hours um but i took them out and they just looked like boiled ribs 155 okay and then what i did is i i i wrapped them before i put them in the cd but i found that that that just came right off without distributing them yeah that's what i did yeah so i re-rubbed them a bit and then put them in the and then put them in the smoker for about an hour again i got a good bark on them just with an hour before i smoked okay and they were good like they were better than the ribs you'd like normally smoke cluster-wise texture-wise they were good yeah they were they were probably like competition texture i i like them no they looked like barbecue lips too like cassandra was making a face when i took it out of the cv and then i took the barbecue and she goes out these look like just like the ribs basically anyways like the ones you have tomorrow you can place yesterday like yeah just put him in his book and freaked out or he spoke reassured by my friend's advice i was pretty confident that i could make some amazing ribs so i prayed to barbecue jesus i rolled up my sleeves and i went to get her done at the 20-hour mark i removed all the ribs from their sous-vide baths but then i ran into another issue what's the best way to get some smoke and bark on them and make them look like actual barbecue ribs after some more research i learned that starting the ribs off cold on the smoker might be the best way to get some good bark and smoke flavor on them because smoke sticks better to cold meat and also the lower temperature of the starting point of the ribs means they'll have more time exposed to the smoke before they get to a reheated temperature so i decided to prepare a ice water bath and then dunk the ribs in them and let them chill for about 30 minutes to get them down to around 40 degrees fahrenheit and while waiting for them to chill i went to fire up my smoker i'm firing up big beefy luigi with my grill gun which can light a fire in a firebox in about 60 seconds if you guys don't already have one links in the description below they're awesome once the smoker comes up to 225 fahrenheit i'm laying down the ribs and giving them an extra hit of white label before i close the lid because some of it got washed away during the sous-vide and they don't really look like ribs right now so i wanted to add a little bit of extra flavor then i smoke the ribs until they reach an internal temperature of 155 degrees fahrenheit finally i'm saucing my ribs with blue's hog original mixed with a bit of vinegar for a bit of extra tang and letting it tack up for five minutes in the smoker then i'm putting down one last layer of sauce and taking them off the smoker after slicing them it's time to serve them up to my dad and my family and see what they think part of me sorry you could have drugs and sleep in a car for two days okay dad try this one and let me know what you think of it okay have you got something to cut it with you have to snap it it's a rib dad you pick it up and you eat it that's very good i can i can taste the smoke i can see the smoke ring and it's got a the meat is so tender it almost literally melts in your mouth do i get worn or is that it yeah you can add more so the results were pretty conclusive the ribs that were cooked in the sous-vide machine at 155 for 20 hours they were a lot more juicy and tender than the ribs that were cooked at 160 in the traeger for the same amount of time however a lot of my family members actually preferred the ribs that came off the traeger the 160 degree sous-vided ribs because they had a little bit more of concentrated flavor my brother actually put it pretty well he said that the ribs that were cooked at 155 were kind of diluted and like the water was taking away from the the meaty flavor so some people do prefer that more well-cooked barbecue taste with more crumbly meat uh it happens with brisket too some people like that really uh crumbly brisket texture and some people like the really juicy brisket texture so what i would say is my opinion is that the 155 ribs were better uh that's that's my opinion based on how it tasted what the texture was like both set of ribs were absolutely amazing they were perfectly bite through they had barely any resistance but they still stuck to the bone so it was perfect consistency they still had a smoke ring which really surprised me in fact i can conclusively say that this is the best way to cook ribs that i've ever experimented with and i've done barbecue competitions i cook for family members doing the regular smoke first then wrap then unwrap and set the sauce method and this just results in much more consistent better juicy texture on the ribs it still has great bark flavor it still has great smoke flavor it still has a smoke ring so there's really no disadvantage to this method other than that it takes 20 hours to get it uh to the right texture and then another x amount of hours to smoke it but there's some other advantages to this method as well for example if you had like a big tailgating party or a barbecue the next day you could cook 20 racks of ribs sous-vided low and slow overnight in the sous-vide machine or the traeger and then you could pull them off you could uh hit them with some smoke at the barbecue or at the tailgate party for about an hour or maybe an hour and a half they'd still get a smoke ring they'd still get smoky bark flavor and you can just pull them right off of the smoker and serve them up and they'll be perfect there's no way that you can screw these up even if you have had a couple too many beverages or you fall asleep at the smoker the ribs are perfectly cooked by the time they even get onto the smoker so all you're really doing is just touching them up and finishing them up a little bit with a little bit of smoke so this is really a great method to try i hope you guys will try it out at least if you have a pellet cooker you can try my pellet cooker soup feed method and also sous vide machines aren't that expensive these days so i think it's worth picking one up because it's going to improve your barbecue 100 and this is a really amazing way to cook ribs so thanks so much for watching guys and if you're interested in talking more about sous-vide ribs or any type of barbecue or just smoking and barbecue in general consider joining my patreon page i'll link it in the description section below we just share pictures of barbecue there and i'll give tips to people if they have questions and it's just a really nice close-knit community where we can all uh sort of help each other out on our barbecue journey and just get better at barbecue together so i hope you'll join me there and i hope to see you in the next video happy smoking

Channel: Smoke Trails BBQ

Views: 27,373

Keywords: bbq, smoke trails bbq, smoked meat, zbiotics, smoked ribs, ribs, ribs recipe, how to smoke ribs, sous vide ribs, best ribs recipe, how to bbq ribs, bbq ribs, baby back ribs recipe, side ribs recipe, ribs on pellet grill, ribs on traeger, pork ribs recipe, juicy ribs, dry ribs, how to make ribs juicy

Id: Tyfxd5rltYk

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 04 2022