Brand New Traeger Pro 34

[ryannuttall]

hello y’all,

I went and picked up a brand new Traeger Pro 34 today from Home Depot for a Black Friday deal. I went to Costco and got 3 racks of ribs and decided to break in the Traeger with some rib smoking.

Here is my issue,
I followed a recipe from traeger’s app where it said to set the cooker to 250 and smoke for 5 hours or until internal temp reaches 203. Well I am currently stuck at 173 or lower for the 3 racks. I changed up the process a bit and decided to switch recipes since the internal temp is where it needs to be for the other recipe, and sauced up the ribs, then wrapped them in foil and set the cooker to 375 until it reaches 204 degrees.

I am just trying to figure out what I may be doing wrong. I did wrap the grease drip pan in aluminum foil to cover it and realized 4 hours in that it may have been blocking the airflow to the rack, but fixed that and the temp is still stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hogan]

Hey ryannuttall - welcome to the bizarro world known as BBQ and Traeger.
I generally cook my ribs at 225, and after about 4 - 5 hours the IT hits 165 region. Meet the stall. So at that point I pull the ribs off, add some sauce (butter, honey, brown sugar, coke - whatever you want) then rewrap tightly in HD foil, and back on for a couple more hours. The wrap holds in moisture, concentrates the flavours, and helps to push the ribs through the stall. IT should now be in the 195-200 range. Move the wrapped ribs into your beer cooler now converted to a holding oven, let them sit for an hour or so, then slice and serve. You may also want to slice the ribs into small racks of 3 and toss `em on the grill to crisp up the outer layer.
When I first joined this forum, I went back to pg 1 of the What’s Cooking chain, and read every post through to pg 104. Took a few days but I came up with about 10 pages of recipes, ideas to try and processes to avoid, and lots of lore and advice.
There are two kinds of BBQ enthusiasts: ones who are about to make a mess of a rack of ribs, and ones who have made a mess of a rack of ribs and learned from it.
Enjoy.

 

[ryannuttall]

Hey ryannuttall - welcome to the bizarro world known as BBQ and Traeger.
I generally cook my ribs at 225, and after about 4 - 5 hours the IT hits 165 region. Meet the stall. So at that point I pull the ribs off, add some sauce (butter, honey, brown sugar, coke - whatever you want) then rewrap tightly in HD foil, and back on for a couple more hours. The wrap holds in moisture, concentrates the flavours, and helps to push the ribs through the stall. IT should now be in the 195-200 range. Move the wrapped ribs into your beer cooler now converted to a holding oven, let them sit for an hour or so, then slice and serve. You may also want to slice the ribs into small racks of 3 and toss `em on the grill to crisp up the outer layer.
When I first joined this forum, I went back to pg 1 of the What’s Cooking chain, and read every post through to pg 104. Took a few days but I came up with about 10 pages of recipes, ideas to try and processes to avoid, and lots of lore and advice.
There are two kinds of BBQ enthusiasts: ones who are about to make a mess of a rack of ribs, and ones who have made a mess of a rack of ribs and learned from it.
Enjoy.

You’re the man thank you for this. This is similar to what I did last night.

I got the ribs to about 170 and took them off, sauced them up, wrapped in foil and threw them back on at 375. Let them get up to 200ish and let them rest on the counter for about 15 minutes and served them up. They were really good flavor just weren’t fall off the bone.

Thank you for the tip!

 

[Hogan]

After saucing and wrapping the ribs, I put them back on at 225. Impressed that you were able to get your 34 up to 375, but from experience, I don't think it's necessary.

 

[ryannuttall]

After saucing and wrapping the ribs, I put them back on at 225. Impressed that you were able to get your 34 up to 375, but from experience, I don't think it's necessary.

The 34 goes up to like 475 on high.

 

[Hogan]

A lot of contributors to these forums indicate their Traeger will barely make 350. The one time I tried mine at 325 it struggled for 30' to get to 300. Anything above 250 I leave to my Weber grill; it'll hit 700 pretty quick.