I got a rack o’ ribs I’d like to cook tonight. My intention is to cook them in the oven and then finish them off on a cheap ass grill I have in my back yard,
I was hoping some of you folks could chime in with a good time/temp combo to pull it off nicely.
I’m kind of at a loss, because until recently, I used to have a smoker that would always cook the ribs from start to finish with a flavor to die for.
Also, it should be noted, since I’m a “rib snob”: Ribs should NOT be so tender they fall off the bone. They should keep their shape when you take a bite out of them.
If you can keep the heat on one side of the grill, put the ribs on the other side. Before I had a smoker I would wrap them in foil, let them cook at as a low a temp as I could get (which wasn’t that low) for 2 hours, then remove, coat with a dry rub, and continue cooking until the brown sugar in the rub was hot and bubbly, maybe 30-60 minutes depending on the heat. If you’re using charcoal, you can just make the fire very small, crack the lid to keep the temperature down, and cook like a smoker. When I smoke salmon in my barrel smoker I use foil to force the smoke along a serpentine path so that it dissapates as much heat as possible before reaching the fish, so you might be able to turn your grill into a makeshift smoker for a small amount of ribs.
FWIW, here is one of my favorite baby back rib recipes from Food Network.
The sauce reduction takes a bit of time, but it’s worth it…and if you put it on while they are on the grill it caramelizes them very nicely and they taste really good.
I don’t have a smoker, but baby back ribs are a favorite. I have a Weber grill with a cover, and a rib rack, so I can fit 2 racks, each cut in half, upright in the 4 slots of the rib rack. Rack goes to the side, coals on other side, with smoking chips. With a low indirect heat, they cook easily, often in 2 to 2-1/2 hrs, tender but not mushy. The only time I’ve had mushy ribs is when someone pre-boils them, which I will accept if that’s their thing – provided the simmer broth is a good ale. Mmmm … adds spiciness, without spices. Here’s a page that discusses the heresy of pre-boiled ribs: http://www.amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/index.html
I’m sure the ribs have been made by now, but another thing my wife does is to put a dry rub on the ribs (I have my own recipe but if you have a Rudy’s in your area they made a decent over the counter dry rub mix that works and tastes great. They have a good spicy wet sauce as well), then put them in a roaster (assuming you have one) with 2 cans of beer on low until the ribs bend when you pick them up (any longer and they will start to fall apart). Then take them out and put your favorite wet rub sauce on them and grill them on your barbecue on high or low on the coals until the sauce caramelizes. This is what we do when we don’t want to go to the trouble to use Alton’s Baby Back rib recipe, or when I don’t want to use my smoker and cook all day.
When I don’t have time for the smoker, I boil mine for an hour with garlic and bay leaves. I drain the ribs and rub them with my choice of rubs for the day.
I stick em in an over at 350 for 30-40 minutes, then fininsh them on the grill, basting with some BBQ sauce.
I haven’t tried any of these, but the NYT had a whole article a couple of weeks ago on how to make good ribs in the oven. Boiling was strongly discouraged, because you lose the flavor of the meat to the water - that’s how you make meat soup, not flavorful meat.
Thank you. I don’t get why people boil ribs. Way to leech all the flavor out of the meat. I used to dislike ribs when I was growing up because every time I had them, they were boiled or baked and served drowned in a gloppy barbecue sauce. Basically, it was just flavorless, gelatinous protein used as a delivery method for barbecue sauce. “Fall off the bone” does not automatically mean “good,” especially when “fall off the bone” means that you can eat it without the help of teeth. Blech, but YMMV. Then, one day, I finally had an honest-to-goodness slow cooked barbecued rib and understood what the fuss was about.
Anyhow, baby backs grill up fine. Arkon’s directions are pretty much what I do if I don’t have access to a smoker. Coals and fire on one side, ribs on the other. At the very end, if I’m feeling like it, I may baste them in a homemade barbecue sauce and finish them on the coal side. Basically, the idea is cook them up as slowly as you can. When they’re almost done (ribs have pulled in from the bone, and they’re bendy but not at the point where they break apart if you lift a rack from the center with tongs), you can give them a little glaze of sauce and then finish them up on the hot side of the coals for a little caramelization and browning. You only need a few minutes a side at this point (if that, depending on how hot your fire is.)
Well, quickly grilling ribs, as if they were a steak or a hamburger, will result in tough ribs. I’d eaten them like that, for the fun of it. Then I heard/saw people parboil them, to cook them, then lightly grill to give them flavor. Compared to a tough dried out rib, these must have been heavenly. Back then we didn’t know about indirect grilling.
If you have a pressure cooker, you can apply a dry rub to the ribs, put them in the pressure cooker with a couple of cups of apple juice and cook them for about 20-30 minutes at high pressure. Take them out, arrange the ribs on a baking sheet, brush on barbecue sauce of your choice and bake them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. The result probably doesn’t measure up to a real barbecue place that’s been in business for 50 years, but it’s tasted pretty good to me.
I brine my ribs overnight, then steam/cook them in the oven (add a little liquid smoke to the water in the bottom of the roasting pan) until the meat is falling off, then finish on the grill.
Takes two days but they are great!
Bone Suckin’ Sauce is a requirement, though- nothing else will do, although I admit to using Sweet Baby Ray’s before I knew better.
