Geo

Did my first cook on my KK on Friday. Decided to do pork ribs because I have done them several times on my pellet grill, and figured I could compare results. Decided to cook two racks so I could compare my favorite rub from past cooks with one I saw on Amazing Ribs website. (Obviously, it is a personal preference, but since I'm just cooking for Miss Jean and me, what's important is which WE prefer).

Washed ribs, removed membrane, applied mustard to hold the rub, and applied the rubs. The darker of the two, has the rub that was my favorite from previous cooks. 

Lit the 23" Ultimate KK, and got it settled at 225*.  Put the ribs on. 

After cooking for perhaps 30minutes, I realized that I had forgotten to insert the heat deflector! Bummer!!! Covered deflector with foil, removed meat, and inserted deflector. At that point I realized that I had a cold deflector, but figured I'd be able to tell when the ribs were nearly done by watching for the meat to pull away from the cut end of the bone (That was always the case with my pellet grill). Continued the cook, and watched for shrinkage. Here's what they looked like after inserting the heat deflector... 

After they had been cooking for about 2-more hours, I started periodically opening the dome to check for doneness. After quite some time, I checked the IT, and found they were way over-cooked. (I've forgotten what the IT was). Pulled the ribs off the smoker, and cut into both. They were dry on the outside, but very moist on the inside. Here's what they looked like...

The ribs were edible, but not as good as I have cooked in the past since I didn't have the heat deflector in place at the start of the cook, and also because they were over-cooked.

Although they didn't meet my expectations, I learned some things...

1) Think through the cook before I begin. The KK is so different from my pellet smoker, that I need to give it the extra thought.

2) Don't expect the finished product to look like it did on my other cooker. Since there is so much moisture in a KK, I'm thinking that there won't be nearly as much shrinkage.

3) Use my Thermapen. That will need to be my gage as to doneness.

Let me add that cooking on my KK is the most fun I've had in recent memory. I suspect that I'll be cooking on it much more regularly than I did on my pellet smoker. I couldn't be happier with it!

(Fixed burgers for lunch today. They were waaaaay too good... Some of the best I've had! I'm obviously on the steep part of the learning curb!)