How to recover from tough pork ribs.

The positives are that the ribs taste great and have a perfect amount of smoke 

flavoring.

The problem is they are from an old hog that is tough and stringy. Now we have 3 options: back in the smoker, roaster in the oven or add more sauce and crock-pot them. I work for the power company so I’m going with the least amount of electricity, it’s winter – Crock-Pot. (The smoker would would be great in the summer.)

One and a quarter bottles of Heinz Kansas City Sweet and Smoky sauce and one 20 ounce bottle of water. I set the crock-pot on high at 11:45.

While I was waiting I welded up a truck bed rack for 2 full size spare tires that are Toyo 35” off road monsters. Then I watched some Jim Shockey’s Uncharted Hunting shows we have recorded on the DirecTV receiver.  

At 5:50 I checked the ribs. They were coming off of the bones finally.

They are still stringy and not tender enough. These ribs are like beef brisket. We bought these pork ribs at Fry’s grocery store that is owned by Kroger. Shame on Kroger for selling miss labeled meats for the standard price. It would be like selling stew chicken priced and packaged as fryers.

At 8:00 pm they are finally done. After 5 hours of smoking at 200*F and 9 hours in the crock-pot on high they are finally tender. What a CROCK.

I guess I need to go to Texas and hunt for some young tender feral hogs.

I do have 2 Javelina tags. The 1^st tag is an archery only tag that I got drawn for, the other was a handgun, archery, and muzzleloader (HAM) hunt that did not have enough people apply for it, so I bought an over-the-counter tag.

Poaching of Javelina in Arizona is out of control so a lot of people that would have bought tags just poaching, because “everyone else is doing it”.

You have idiots who illegally feed wildlife in their yards, but don’t like the Javelina because they aren’t pretty like deer. They shoot Javelina with pellet guns in town and haul them out to the woods and “dump them off for the coyotes”. Of course they do the same thing to the coyotes that come into their feast.

Then there are the mentally ill and drug addict homeless that will trap, spear and knife the Javelina for food. I find skulls and bones around their abandoned camps of Javelina, bovine calves and sometimes their dogs.

The biggest group of poachers is the Illegal Immigrants (Foreign Exchange Workers). They dump trash in the woods and kill any game animal they can with cheap compound bows from Wal-Mart that anyone can pay cash for. The Arizona Game and Fish is so shorthanded that they can never keep up with this huge group of poachers. When they do make an arrest then there are Sanctuary groups that hire lawyers that claim they are racially profiling. What does poaching have to do with race? Nothing. It makes stopping them expensive.

These people leave their homes and countries they love because the drug trafficking to the USA has destroyed their jobs and lifestyle. Why should they care about the USA or want to be citizen of a country that isn't theirs and has destroyed theirs?            

The problem is illegal drugs being used in the USA. We need to stop the problem to stop the effects of the problem. Get the mentally ill back into safe homes with medical help to stop their suffering. Bill Clinton kicked them out onto the street when he was President, the Bush's and Obama left them there.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Christmas dinner with friends 12-23-17

Christmas dinner with friends 12-23-17

Today’s smoke is chicken thighs and pork ribs.

I tried the Heinz Kansas City Sweet and Smoky BBQ sauce on this smoke. It was fairly thick and easy to apply with the squirt top lid. I apply the sauce to both sides of the meat.

I smoothed out the sauce out with a silicon brush. The bristles are hard enough to push the sauce around and you’ll never lose a bristle in the food. It took me 45 minutes to get out the smoker, apply the sauce and load the smoker.

I used up an old bag of hickory chips that was 2 trays and a tray of apple wood chip.

In the past I’ve done ribs and chicken together at 225*F for 5 hours with fabulous results. To do a little change up I set the temperature to 200*F for today’s smoke. I started the smoker with the meat on the racks at 11:13 am. The smoker was at 51*F because it just came out of my garage. Doing a cold start with the wood chips gets a lot of smoke going fast. The air vent on top of my Masterbuilt 30” Electric Smoker was ¼ way open and I put no water in the drip pan.

The smoker heats from the bottom so I put the thighs on the upper racks so the rising smoke has more concentration to soak through the skin. I leave the skin on to keep the moisture in.

Today is a sunny 60*F day with almost no breeze. It is a perfect day for smoking.

At 12:18 I added another tray of apple wood chips and opened the top vent to let some of the moisture out so I wasn’t steaming the meat. I did not open the door because it lets the heat out too. I could hear liquids sizzling in the dip pan and the steam was rolling out of the vent.

At 4:00 pm I turned off the smoker, closed the vent and left the door closed so the meat could continue to cook.

I pulled the meat at 4:42 pm. So it cooked for about 5 hours because of the cold start.

The chicken was perfect with crispy skin and moist meat that is falling off of the bone.

The ribs could have gone a couple more hours with the heat bumped up to 225*F. They had great flavor and were cooked through to well done but the meat was firmer than I would have liked it to be. They must have come off of an older hog and started out on the tough side. When I cut the ends off when I was filling the racks and applying sauce I noticed it was not as tender as we usually get at COCTCO. Now we all know to check the ribs. If I’d cooked them like beef ribs they would have been perfect. Of course, playing with 200*F was a factor too.

The ribs tasted great but they were not falling off of the bone. You can see in the picture that the meat hadn’t shrunk back on the bones.

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!