Thermal Cooked Ribs

Two days ago, it was soooo hot that I had water dripping off of my head as we went on a Labor Day Weekend hike with our grandchildren.  Today, it is hurricane weather (in Utah!) and so cold that it actually snowed.  Here in northern Utah, over 100,000 people are said to be without power because trees have uprooted and fallen on power lines. 

I started this post a couple of weeks ago, and then, of course life got in the way of finishing it.  But, today seems like a good day to wrap it up since people might wish they knew of a way to prepare a meal without electricity in their homes.   

It seems like we have had the hottest summer in history.  

Although we do have a swamp cooler, which sits on top of the house and blows cold air down a shaft, we have had no type of air conditioning in our house all summer.   Every previous summer, Hunter Man has turned on the water that runs to the cooler, climbed up on the roof, worked his magic, and voila, we have had cool air blowing down the stairs and throughout the house, making it cool enough on most days to feel comfortable.  I have no idea why that did not take place this summer.  

In June, after the first hot night of the summer, I told Hunter Man that I had just had the worst night of sleep, ever.  Later that day, he called me and announced that we were going to get a bid on a central air system.   The summer went on and the days with temperatures over 95 degrees just kept adding up and we still had no central air conditioning system or swamp cooler.   One thing about Hunter Man is that once he has had an idea, he either goes forward with it and completes it---or in his mind, because he talked about it—it is almost done.   No complaints or hints or anything that I said got the swamp cooler started.  One day, he said, “It won’t be this bad if we can just hang on until it is below 100 degrees outside.”  What?!!  I never wanted September to come as bad as I did this year.  

Then, September came and we had extremely high winds with snow on the 8^th day!  That is not exactly what I wished for. 

It was so hot that it seemed like when it was over 100 degrees outside, it was 200 degrees inside.  The floors were hot, the countertops were hot, and I found out I couldn’t even touch the chocolate chips because they melted if I even moved them.  One day, I made a small pan of chocolate chip cookie bars (in the air fryer because it was too hot to turn on the oven) and when I put the chocolate chips in the dough, they were already so soft they just spread out.  I wish I would have thought to move the chocolate chips down to the basement when the hot streak started.  It is so much cooler down there.  

And that brings me to Hunter Man’s 2020 air conditioning system.  He bought a giant fan to put at the bottom of the basement stairs.  It blows the cool basement air up to another fan at the top of those stairs which blows that semi-cool air into the family room and kind of around the main level of the house.  The family room was slightly bearable on most days.  But, our bedrooms are on the top floor of our 3 story house and heat rises!  And, the kitchen was extremely hot whenever I tried to prepare any meals.  The only way I could cook in there was with the air fryer and the microwave.  Using the oven was out of the question.  

But there came a day when I had a rack of pork ribs that I wanted to make for dinner.  We don’t have a smoker and our only barbecue is at our mountain property (which we refer to as Camelot).  So, unless I am having the best ribs around from R & R Barbecue, I usually just put ribs in the crock pot for the day with some seasonings and Cherry Coke, and then when it is time to eat, I take them out of the crock pot, put barbecue sauce on them, and broil them for a few minutes.  They always fall off the bones and are very tender.   I love these ribs!

With it being 200 degrees in the house, I didn’t even want to add to the temperature with the crock pot sitting there producing heat all day long.   Thus, came the Thermal Cooker experiment for preparing the ribs.  Thermal cooking means cooking with retained heat, over a period of time.  The main premise is to boil whatever you are making for 15 minutes before placing it in some kind of device that holds the heat inside it for 3 to 8 hours.

I encourage you to learn and research as much as you can from experts on retained heat cooking before you try it so that you will feel confident enough to attempt this type of food preparation.   A very important tip is that when you remove the food from the thermal cooker, the temperature of the food should be at least 160 to 190 degrees.  At the end of this post, I will provide some links for sites that contain very good information.  I do not claim to be an expert on this subject.

I do not have a purchased thermal cooker.  There are many ways to make a home made thermal cooker.  The first time, I tried this method of cooking, I used the camping cooler method.  I made lasagna and it worked out really well.  I thought I might as well try the same method to make barbecued ribs.  

First, I cut the ribs into individual pieces, seasoned them, and put them in a zippered plastic bag to rest while I prepared the thermal cooker.  

These are the ingredients that I used:  Brown sugar, mustard powder, oregano, chili powder, onion powder, paprika, cumin, and Mrs. Dash Garlic Flavoring.

 

Second, I made the liquid.  I used Cherry Pepsi, apple juice, barbecue sauce, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, and seasonings.  

I used a medium sized pan that has a tight fitting lid and put it on the stove with all of the ingredients and brought it to a boil.  Then, I added the ribs, brought it back to a boil and let it continue to boil for 15 minutes.  

In the meantime, I prepared the cooler.  I put a pillow in the bottom, followed by a kids slumber style sleeping bag pushed down in the center and draped over the two sides.  I covered that with two large black trash bags to protect the sleeping bag in case something spilled.  I put towels over the trash bags. 

 After the 15 minutes of boiling, I put the lid on the pan and carefully set it in the middle of the cooler nest that I had made.  I brought the towels in to cover it, then folded in the sides of the sleeping bag, and shut the cooler lid.  

6 hours later, Hunter Man came home from work and was ready to eat.  We opened the cooler, uncovered the pan, and discovered that it was still so hot, we couldn’t lift it out without hot pads.  That meant that the thermal cooker did not lose very much heat at all during those 6 hours.  

I placed the amount of ribs that we were going to eat that night in the air fryer basket, covered them with barbecue sauce, and 'broiled' them for about 5 minutes.   They looked so delicious and I couldn't wait to eat them.  The real test is always whether Hunter Man says, “That was good.  I really liked this or that about it.”  He did!  And when he ate them as leftovers the next day, he said they were even better.  I thought the texture of the ribs was a little different than they would have been if they had been smoked or baked, but they were still very good.  

I considered it a successful experiment.  If there ever is an emergency where fuel is limited,  knowing how to use retained heat cooking will come in handy.  If there is no access to electrical power, you can use other fuel sources like campfires or propane stoves for the beginning of the food preparation.  

Sometime, I am going to try the retained heat cooking method when we are going on one of Hunter Man’s long drives through the mountains looking for the perfect fly fishing stream or hunting location.  I will make something like taco soup, use the retained heat cooler system, put it in the back of the truck, and then have dinner ready to eat wherever we happen to end up.  Of course, we could end up with soup spilled all over the inside of the cooler from driving on bumpy, dirt roads, but it will be fun to try.  

Here is a link to the Provident Prepper’s web page about thermal cooking.  It has a lot of good information on it.  https://theprovidentprepper.org/thermal-cookers-powerful-solution-for-efficient-emergency-cooking/

Another expert is Cindy McMullin Miller, who wrote the book “Let’s Make Sense of Thermal Cooking.”  https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Sense-Thermal-Cooking-Cookbook/dp/0996242899/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=retained+heat+cooker&qid=1597896469&sr=8-4  I have attended a couple of demonstrations that she has presented.  She is very passionate about thermal cooking and even teaches it to people in other countries.   
 

The home page of  the thermal cooking.net website shows a picture of the variety of thermal cookers that are available.  https://www.thermalcooking.net/

 

Here is the link to a page of thermal cooker options.  https://www.thermalcooking.net/online-store

This link also has information on retained heat cooking. 
http://myfoodstoragecookbook.com/category/wonder-oven-cooking/