My uncle from Kansas City told me my ribs were 'too clean' and it bugged me for a week
My uncle Ray has been running a pit in Kansas City for close to 20 years and he came by my place two Saturdays ago while I had 3 racks going on the offset. He poked at one, pulled a bone, and just goes 'that's the problem right there, they're too clean.' I had no clue what he meant so I asked and he said my ribs looked like a photo, no bark pulling apart, no juices running, nothing that looked like the meat fought back. He said pitmasters worry so much about the bend test and the clean bite that they forget folks want to see the mess. He told me to wrap later next time and stop fussing with the lid every 20 minutes like I'm checking on a sleeping baby. That hit me because I've been chasing tidy results for months, trimming every rack perfect, saucing in neat lines, and somehow the food got boring. I did a rack his way on Sunday and let it ride untouched for close to 2 hours and the bark came out dark and sticky like candy. Anybody else have somebody tell you your que looks too pretty to eat? What did you change after that?