Award Winning Smoked Beef Plate Short Ribs

I can’t take the credit here for cooking technique, but I can say the meat from these smoked beef ribs is the best beef I have ever tasted!…The credit for the cooking technique all goes to my great friend, Jay, that cooked with us this year at the 2016 Texas Eggfest held near Austin, in Driftwood, TX. We are calling this “award winning”, because we ended up winning at the Eggfest. There were over two-thousand attendees that voted for their favorite dishes with around 50 cooks sharing their delicious creations. It is such a great honor to be one of the winners! Thank you to all who voted for us! Enjoy!

Here is technique and recipe that I used:

Buying the Ribs:

You want to buy whole beef plate short ribs. These are sold in butcher packer vacuum sealed packs, 6 to the pack for the 3 rib plates or 8 to the pack for 4 rib plates. The ribs shown are from the four rib plate, but I prefer the 3 rib plates because they are meatier and the fourth rib on the 4 rib plates is basically a throw away rib. You will have to ask the butcher for these and let them know that you want the whole plate rib before they are cut into the small short ribs. I bought the 3 rib plates (Choice) at Sam’s whereas the 4 rib plates (Prime) I bought at Costco. Choice or Prime made no difference in flavor or texture.

Trimming the Ribs:

The ribs come with a lot of silver skin on them and I prefer to painstakingly trim all of this off, but have had friends say that it doesn’t matter, but I have a hard time leaving it on…trim it off.

Espresso Power Blend Rub Recipe:

3 tablespoons Underwood’s “It’s My Rub!” Power Blend

1 tablespoon instant espresso coffee (Medaglia D’ Oro brand)

1 teaspoon celery salt

2 teaspoons sea salt

1 tablespoon Penzey’s California Pepper Blend

Mix all together, and use as needed.

Applying the Rub:

Kosher Salt – Sprinkle the ribs with kosher salt, holding the shaker about 1 foot above the ribs. Coat evenly, but not too heavily.
Yellow Mustard – Coat the ribs generously on all sides with yellow mustard. I used Frenches Yellow Mustard.
Espresso Power Blend Rub – Sprinkle the ribs generously with the espresso rub. The ribs should be coated completely on all sides.
Prepped and Ready to Go On

Prepping the Smoker or Big Green Egg:

On the Smoker

Smoked and Ready Sous Vide

Set up the smoker or BGE to cook indirect.
Use lump and add Hickory chunks and Pecan chunks for smoke.
Light and heat to 280 degrees.
Once you have clean smoke, add your meat to the smoker and cook for 3 hours or to an internal temp of 135 degrees.
Allow the ribs to cool.

Vacuum Seal the Smoked Ribs:

Put one or two ribs per vacuum seal bag.
Make sure that you have a good seal.
Make sure that all of the air was removed during sealing or the ribs will float in the sous vide.

Sous Vide:

Fill your sous vide machine with water
Set the temp to 135 degrees
Put the vacuum sealed smoked beef ribs into the water bath
Make sure that all the ribs are completely covered with water
Cook the ribs for 44 hours
After 44 hours you can ice down the ribs or finish them on the grill.

Finishing the Smoke Beef Ribs on the Grill:

I finish the ribs on the grill to create and tighten up the bark, but this is optional.

Hot out of the Sous Vide – If the ribs are coming right out of the sous vide. I grill them at a higher temp at 500 – 600 degrees. This is for a quick seer and is not to further cook the meat.

Cold – If the ribs have been chilled and coming out of the refrigerator, I grill them at a lower temp at 350 – 400 degrees. To get the internal temp up to about 135 degrees and to tighten up the bark.

My Sous Vide Setup:

I knew we were going to cook these ribs at the Texas Eggfest and needed to cook a lot of ribs. That meant I needed enough room in the sous vide to cook all of them (48 ribs). So, I bought an Anova Sous Vide machine which circulates and heats water. For a container, I used my older Coleman 62 quart Extreme Cooler and drilled a 2.5” hole in the top of it and inserted the Anova. I layered the ribs between metal racks and filled with water. I set to 135 degrees and let go for 44 hours. I put a couple of temperature probes to test the water temp…this thing was great! It never wavered even .1 degrees! See the pictures below.