Beef Button Ribs ( "Riblets", for the Applebees crowd)

I'm pleasantly surprised with the Beef Button Ribs we picked up at Super Wally World a few weeks ago. They had been sitting in the freezer for a while and I decided, since the wife wanted a pulled pork dinner, I'd throw on the ribs too.

We woke up to 2-3 inches of fresh snow this morning, so we had to go out and do a little shoveling before firing up the Ugly Drum Smoker.

Once we got the driveway cleared I loaded up the fire basket and lit a chimney full of charcoal. I'm using Hickory for this cook.  

We got the ribs and pork butt on by 9:30AM.  I always misjudge time with Pork Butts and we usually end up eating quite late. As I write this, I am hoping I got it right this time. It' s 2:00 PM and we're at 164F. I figure I'm in a stall right now and will wait until 3PM to see if I'm right. If so, I'll wrap the butt. If there' s no stall, I'll just keep trucking till we hit 205F.

Anyway, back to the ribs. I rubbed them with a combo of salt, black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder and let them rest for a couple of hours in the fridge.  At about 9:30 AM my UDS temps were around 250F-275F, so I threw on the butt and the ribs. I gave up fighting the UDS and just let it go at around 260F for about 3 hours. I took them off at the 3 hour mark and wrapped them in foil with a couple pats of butter on top for moisture. I would normally have splashed in some Apple juice but I forgot to buy some. 

After about 45 minutes in foil I pulled the ribs and removed the foil. Normally I would put them back on the smoker to dry out a bit from the steam in the foil, but with no real liquid  this time there was very little steam and the ribs came out with their bark intact. 

The plan was to have them tomorrow night for dinner, but after we each tried one, the rest went down the hatch pretty quickly thereafter.  

I wasn't holding out much hope for these Button Ribs, but like I said above, I was pleasantly surprised.  We'll definitely try them again!