Cook #2: Braised St. Louis Spare Ribs w/ Slaw

Cook #3 was much more successful than my first go around.  After using my first cook as a learning experience I first cleaned out the ash tray under the fire great.  I used 1 rack of St. Louis Style Spare Ribs (purchased from Target, not the best meat source, but the ribs were cheap & readily available.  I will be purchasing higher quality ribs next time).  I used the basic bbq rub from the Big Green Egg cookbook & 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar.  I liberally applied the rub to the ribs, placed them into a drip or roasting pan & added the red wine vinegar.  I covered them with foil and let them sit until the egg was ready.

Now for the egg settings: I filled ONLY the firebox with about 50/50 new & used lump charcoal (currently I'm using only the Big Green Egg brand of charcoal) and used a single starter cube in the center of the lump.  After about 10 minutes the cube was out and a few pieces of the charcoal had caught.  I closed the lid and went bout dialing in my temperature.  I was able to pre-heat the egg to 300 F, and then I added then plate setter (legs up).  In retrospect, it would have been better to add the plate setter as soon as I was ready to close the lid.  The reasoning being that adding the large ceramic plate setter dropped the temp substantially (roughly 30 F upon initial placement & almost 50 F after about 10 mins).  This required the opening of the bottom sash up to 5/8" with the daisy wheel all the way open.  This allowed the temp to climb back to 300 F at which point the daisy wheel was closed to 50 % and the bottom closed to 1/2".  At this point, the egg was ready for the ribs.  So, on they went & were allowed to cook for 1 hr 45 min.  I didn't open the lid once, with the temp being stalbe.  Although, I did have to make fine adjustments throughout the cook with the daisy wheel.  I suspect that this will be the case for a while until I really get the hang of this. The egg recipe calls for finishing the ribs at 450 F straight on the grill, but I personally don't care for chared/caramelized sauce, so I just ended them.  To review here were the final settings:

1 starter cube (center of lump)

Bottom Sash: 5/8" to start, with closing to 1/2" to maintain

Daisy Wheel:  Full Open

The end result was ribs that were moist, tender & almost ripped in half when I picked them up with the tongs.