How to Cook Beef Ribs in the Flaming Coals Offset with Tempmaster and HotRods

We’re all about making sure our products work well here. In this case, that means we have to take one for the team and test cooking some fantastic quality beef ribs and sausages on the Flaming Coals Offset Smoker using the Tempmaster Pro temperature controller and HotRods.

Here’s how the cook went:

First of all, we want to give a huge thank-you and shout out to Lindens Fresh Meats in Mornington for supplying some fantastic product for this cook. The Beef ribs and sausages were top notch. If you’re looking for a supplier of great meat, head in to see the team at Lindens Fresh Meats.

We started by trimming the brisket and rubbing it with Flaming Coals Bovine Espresso, Harcore Carnivore, Butchers Axe Longhorn Dust and B&B Texas Cattle Call rubs.

For this cook, we wanted to test the Flaming Coals Tempmaster Pro automatic smoker temperature control with HotRods in the Offset Smoker Charcoal Basket. HotRods burn hotter than standard charcoal, so we were interested to see how the Tempmaster handled compressed charcoal and how well it automatically controlled the smokers' temperature.

With half a basket full of HotRods, we started a chimney-full and poured them in. We set the Tempmaster Pro to 250f and waited to see what would happen.

Here’s what we found out:

- With the HotRods in the basket, the Tempmaster Pro kept the pit at about 250 degrees steadily without using much of the smokers HotRods charcoal at all.
- If we wanted to raise the temperature in the pit, we needed to move the basket closer to the vent where the Tempmaster fan was. This was likely because the basket was protecting the fire from the fan to some extent
- Once the temperature was set at our desired level (250f), by using the HotRods in the basket, the Tempmaster Pro had complete control over the offset - we didn’t need to make any adjustments, add fuel or change settings throughout a 5-6 hour cook.

Although we did check it, there was nothing that we needed to do at any stage other than check on the food. Not bad.

Committed to the experiment, we dutifully spritzed the ribs and set up to wrap them with butter.

Time to test another new product - NeoHeat 250 gloves. These gloves protect your hands from temperatures up to 250 degrees celsius. They keep your hands dry too. They are washable and can be reused. When we wrapped the ribs, we opened the smoker and picked them up straight off the grill using the NeoHeat gloves, wrapped them and put them back in to keep cooking. Then we checked the results of the glove test. Clean, dry, unburnt hands - test passed. The new NeoHeats saw sausage handling and carving duties too with no problems.

At the end of the cook, the charcoal basket was still nearly full of charcoal - a combination of the long burn time of the HotRods and the efficiency of the Tempmaster Pro.

We are also pleased to report that the results of the cook were tasty, juicy smoked ribs and sausages. At the end of it all, we were prepared to put up with eating what was produced. For the sake of the experiment. You’re welcome.