I'm not sure what prompted it, but but sometime last week I found myself craving some bbq pork ribs. I remembered I had a rack vacuum sealed and froze in the freezer, so I let @mrsbozz know I was going to plan on smoking them this past weekend. Even though she doesn't eat them, she was fully supportive of my craving and when she planned the meals, she left Saturday night open for a BBQ night.
I wanted them to be thawed out in time, so I pulled the baby back ribs out of the freezer on Thursday evening and left them covered in the refrigerator until Friday evening when I pulled them out of the vacuum seal bag and applied my bbq rub to them.
I started with a decent layer of yellow mustard to act as a binder for the rub to adhere too. That's a tip I picked up a while ago. Some people skip that step and others swear by it. I have been doing it for a couple of cooks now and I think it works quite well. If you are worried about the mustard taste overpowering everything, you don't have to worry about that. After it cooks, you don't even notice it.
I put the ribs back in the refrigerator covered overnight. Before you critique me too much, I know I should have gotten my rub on more of the surfaces of the ribs. I was kind of in a hurry and I was working with a smaller pan than I should have been. In the future I won't make that mistake. If you look at the photo above, that area on the side should have been covered with rub.
I used a premade rub that I bought from the store. It's just your typical mix of salt, pepper, brown sugar, and some other spices.
The next day around 11:30 AM I started getting my grill ready for the cook. I pulled out the old coals that were still in there and I put my slow n sear in place in the Weber Kettle.
Then I placed the charcoal in place with a couple of fire starters on one end.
Finally, I filled the reservoir with water and I put the grill grates on top before lighting the starters.
I also got out some small chunks of apple and hickory wood to throw on the fire for a more smokey flavor to the ribs.
Then it was just a waiting game for the coals to get going.
I recently bought a Chef IQ probe for grilling and smoking. While it works great for the internal temperature of whatever you are cooking, I wanted to see how well it measures the ambient temperature of the grill. To do that I used my old probe that I used to use for grilling and smoking. I placed it on the opposite side of the grill from the fire.
Eventually the coals got going and the internal temperature of the grill came to a point where I was able to place the ribs on and get them going.
225 to 250 degrees was the heat level I was aiming for. Then once the ribs hit the 205 degree mark, it would be time to pull them off.
As you can see, I placed them on the opposite side of the grill from the fire. I also placed the vent on the top of the grill right over the ribs so the smoke would be pulled from the other side across the meat and then out the vent at the top.
As you can see, the wood chunks were already starting to do their job creating a bit of smoke for the ribs.
About five hours later around 5:30 PM I opened up the grill to check on the ribs. They were right at the 190 degree mark and I was starting to get a bit impatient and I was running out of time before the rest of dinner was ready. Looking back, I probably should have let them go a bit longer, but they still turned out really good.
There are a couple different schools of thought with doing ribs low and slow this way. Some people wrap them in foil and place them back on the grill after the first three hours or so. This helps traps moisture and heat in the ribs, but many people feel like this tends to overcook them. For example, have you ever heard of "fall off the bone" ribs? Many purists would consider ribs like that overcooked.
Instead, the "professionals" feel that there should be a bit of "tug" to get the meat to come off the bone when you bite into them, but when the meat does come away from the bone, it should pull away clean.
That's how these turned out.
Personally, I don't care which way they are, ribs are just plain delicious to me.
I smothered them with some BBQ sauce and left them on the grill for a bit longer while I cooked up some chicken that we were going to use for a different meal this week.
You can see here the meat was starting to pull away from the bone which is usually a good sign.
Meanwhile, I also threw on a chicken burger for @mrsbozz to have with the rest of her meal while I enjoyed my ribs.
It turned out to be a really great meal. Check out the smoke ring on those ribs. Pretty great huh? I ate about 1/3 of the rack and then I pulled the rest of the meat off the bones to enjoy in various leftovers through the week.
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