As taught by our instructor at a Traeger Shop class, "Good BBQ is the result of a lot of bad BBQ". Coming from a famous Pit Boss, this was kind of sobering. I struggled with consistency, (after using the Traeger recipes) until that class. My learning curve is a lot flatter these days; experience is the best teacher after sitting in front of one with ample to share.
1. When you're learning a new recipe (sorry, this is grill does not have a Staples "Easy" button, as the ads would have you believe) always document what it says and how your results come out. Temps, times, etc. It may take a couple of tries, (learning isn't cheap, but constant failures are more so) but eventually, you'll find the sweet spot that has your grill turn out consistently excellent food - barring a bad cut of meat.
2. Prepare the ribs. Are you removing most of the excess fat and the clear membrane?
3. For the beginning smoke phase, I spray my ribs with apple juice every 30 minutes. Later, I make an aluminum foil pouch and fill it with some apple juice before sealing the meat inside.
4. Cook to temp. Always have a hand-held thermometer available. (I really like the accuracy of the Meater, but have had good experiences with the (cabled) iGrill from Weber. Two Traeger flip-out, digital thermometers died within two months, so I moved on to the two afore-mentioned thermometers on both of my grills.
Now that the pandemic seems less dire, I highly recommend attending a Shop class. They're not only a lot of fun, but you'll learn things that might take years to figure out otherwise.
Oh yeah, you get an excellent meal of each of the recipes taught in the lesson guide too!
