BBQ Beef Short Rib

BBQ Beef Short Rib - 12hr cooking method using 2 loads of charcoal / oak logs for Texas Style BBQ brisket or BBQ short ribs

My 12hrs smoking method for smoked BBQ beef short ribs & beef brisket using two loads of charcoal with oak log splits in the Kamado / Big Green Egg BBQ

This @SmokingBBQBadboy BBQ beef method gets such consistent results, I am now using this method to cook my BBQ beef 75% of the time in the kamado / egg bbq vs my large offset smoker, which takes so much more effort & fire management.

This 3 minute video goes through each step & I will explain when I reached challenges with achieving clean smoke in the BBQ in the steps so you can see the results used to get a beautiful blue smoke + smoke ring on the BBQ beef.

BBQ Beef Ribs in Kamado / Egg / Smoker method using 2 loads of charcoal

Every time is a learning exercise it feels when I am smoking up BBQ beef brisket or BBQ short ribs but this method is relatively consistent and the key thing for me, requires minimal effort & input compared to using the offset smoker with purely oak wood splits / logs. There is only so much 'learning' I can stomach before I expect results, so here the taste difference is minimal if you are using good quality charcoal + oak wood chunks or splits in the initial first few hours of the smoking / BBQing. But it's so much easier a journey.

1. Get charcoal started in a charcoal chimney (try to find the biggest lumps possible)
2. Create an SPG+ rub mix (salt, pepper & garlic as a base + I add ginger & Chinese 5 spice)
3. Apply rub to your BBQ beef ribs lightly
4. Clean out your fire basket / fire bowl in Big Green Egg / Kamado BBQ
5. Chop some 2 inch wide oak splits or prepare fire wood chunks
6. Add the wood to your hot charcoal
7. Check to see the wood is on fire (it helps to pre-heat the wood - you can even microwave it)
8. Put in deflector plate, water bath & close lid of BBQ to allow heat to come up to temp 245 
9. Check the smoke - if it's too heavy (see the video), open lid to allow the oak to catch
10. Once oak has caught enough that it's on fire, close lid again and oak on the charcoal will burn with minimal smoke (see the video)
11. With a stable temp & good blue smoke, put your BBQ short ribs into the egg / kamado BBQ smoker
12. BBQ beef can now cook for around 3-5hrs with the one load of charcoal & oak wood
13. Watch the temperature for the 'stall' when the meat gets to between 155 and 170 depending on the cut of BBQ beef you have in your smoker. I stalled at 171 as seen in my Inkbird WIFI temperature app (see the video).
14. Start spritzing the meat around 155 to keep the edges of BBQ beef from burning. Spritzing can affect the temperature sensors & at the 4 hrs stage, you need to start watching for the charcoal going off.
15. App showed a 20 degree drop in temperature as the charcoal is running out
16. Take the BBQ beef off the smoker, remove the water bath & heat deflector to access the remaining coal (don't let the temp in smoker / BBQ / Big Green Egg / Kamado go below 220 because it will be difficult to get the fresh charcoal to catch quickly otherwise). Of course, you could start a separate load of charcoal in your charcoal chimney but I find it's easy enough to add the charcoal into the smoker / BBQ itself.
17. Put the heat deflector, water bath, grate & beef back into BBQ (try to do all this as quickly as possible to avoid loosing too much temp in the BBQ beef which can cause the meat to go into reverse direction for up to 1-2 hrs as the heat sinks from surface inwards but actually drops the internal temperature the the 'exchange' happens). It's almost like currents of heat in an ocean moving but the cold moves from surface down.
18. If water bath is looking empty, add more water to stop the fats that are rendering down out of the BBQ beef from burning.
19. Prepare for wrapping once you are sure the temperature in BBQ beef is rising again
20. Put BBQ beef (whether beef ribs or beef brisket) onto the butcher paper, if you have tallow, add it to the paper to make it more moisture resistant. Add around 1/2 cup of beef broth or water with soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic to whatever ratio you enjoy). Wrap as tightly as possible & the meat will steam inside the butcher paper wrap
21. Re-insert the meat temperature probes into the BBQ beef & replace back into the BBQ (which should be running at a consistent 245 again after the recent charcoal addition).
22. Cook the BBQ beef till internal temperature of 203 is reached. They say cook to temperature rather than time but the stage two wrapped cook might be between 4 and 8 hrs depending on size beef cut & amount of fat / other connective tissue in the beef, which is essential to keeping the beef moist & tender.
23. Try adjusting the placement of the temperature probes within BBQ beef a few times during the stage 2 cook process. Often an inch in or out in the meat can register up to 20 degrees F different in temp, which is huge, so adjusting the placement allows you to ensure that you are getting the true 'coldest' point in the BBQ beef.
24. You can also use the probes test for 'feel' where the classic 'done' stage being inserting and pulling out the probe feels like 'soft butter'. Effectively, you should be able to push the probe in without resistance (though the butcher paper wrap can create a fake resistance, especially if you have multiple layers of paper, so be aware).
25. When ready, take the BBQ beef out of the smoker / kamado / egg BBQ and allow to rest (minimum 30 mins for BBQ beef short rib / minimum 1hr for beef brisket). Common wisdom is that longer rest periods = better texture, so resist digging in if you can.
26. Enjoy!

The spritz - some people say that the sole purpose is to 'clean' the meat of ashes (BBQ god Arron Franklin), others say it's to keep the edges of meat from drying out (a very valid point & important part of the mix) and a few people seem to think that the spritz liquid adds flavour. I am not quite sure on this one at this stage as when you see the smoke ring, that is caused by the smoke vapour rather than smoke particles / ashes, with a moist surface helping with smoke penetration. However, for safety, I sometimes add some additional flavouring to the spritzing liquid such as soy sauce, Worcestershire or juice.