Warm weather is upon us, I have an itch to grill, and pork spareribs are the loss leader at the grocery store this week. So! Share with me your favorite recipes, because I am kind of a rib newbie and don’t really know where to start. There are approximately five bazillion recipes out there and I’d rather start with something that at least one person has told me is worth making.
Well I prefer my ribs asian style.
First of all, soak the ribs in soy sauce about 15 min a side before grilling.
While on the flame keep a close eye for fire ups, the fat from the ribs can cause them to burn.
Don’t cook the ribs all the way through. Take them off the fire while they’re still a little pink.
Take them inside and put in a pot with soy and a little bit of water. Steam cook the rest of the way through.
Serve the ribs with rice, use the drippings in the pot as a topping for the rice.
Beats any BBQ sauce I’ve ever tasted.
Rib rub (borrowed from Wolfgang Puck and modified a bit):
4 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons onion powder
4 tablespoons garlic powder
4 tablespoons dried marjoram or thyme
4 tablespoons dried oregano
4 tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons cayenne (or more if you like it real hot)
4 teaspoons ground cumin
4 teaspoons black pepper
2 tablespoons salt
Mix it all up. I store it in a ziploc baggie. (It makes more than enough for 4 racks of babybacks.)
Sprinkle your rack of ribs generously and rub in with your hands. Preheat gas grill to high, then turn down to about 200° and cook for several hours, turning about every 30 minutes. About the time everyone is starving (3 hours minimum for babybacks) slap the sauce of your choice on those puppies and allow to caramelize a bit (about 20-30 minutes). Or leave 'em dry. Spicy, smoky and slightly sweet. Hoo boy! I just made some on Sunday.
Pay not attention to the previous pretenders. Listen to Uncle Scylla and I’ll tell you how to make ribs that will make the angels themselves cry.
Ok. The thing with ribs is that they have a lot of tough stringy connective tissue, and if you want your ribs to be good you need to address this fact. From a strict chemistry, physics standpoint you need three things to get rid of this toughness and turn it into juicy goodness: Vinegar, smoke, and time.
Soak your ribs overnight in a fifty/fifty mix of apple cider vinegar and water.
Prepare a dry rub. Use 1 part white sugar, one part brown sugar, one part chili powder, and one more part consisting of everything that sounds good (salt, cumin, paprika, black pepper, etc, etc.)
Fire up a water smoker.
Don’t have one?
No problem. Fire up your grill. Turn the heat down low or let the coals burn down. Put in a small metal tray (disposable) with a mixture of mesquite, hickory, and apple wood chips (you can buy these at walmart.) Put in another tray with water.
Cut your ribs into sections so that you can pile them 3 high in your smoker/grill. Dry them off and coat them with the prepared rub, and put them on your smoker/grill.
Keep the heat low, and you don’t need too much smoke. Low steady heat and moist smoke is want you want.
Once an hour check on the water and chips, and replenish as necessary. When you do this take the rib section from the bottom and put it on top. Each section of ribs will spend one third of it’s time getting smoke and heat from the bottom, one third of the time on the top, and one third of the time in the middle.
The longer they cook with the lower the heat the better, but you want at least three hours (I usually go about six.)
You will know the ribs are done when they start to fall apart as you rotate them in the pile and you will also notice that the meat is beginning to pull back from the bones a little bit.
At this point you need to arm yourself with some heavy caliber weapons so that you may safely transport your ribs to a safe and secure location. Many is the time I’ve made ribs in this fashion only to be assaulted by Ninjas or highly trained special ops teams who will swoop in and attempt to steal them.
Take no chances. They are that good.
The other thing that you can do is…
If you have a multi level smoker, place your ribs on the top.
Take a nice roast beef and place it on the tray underneath. All the spicy pork drippings will fall on the roast beef. The roast beef will cook relatively quickly and serve as a wonderful appetizer to the ribs (be sure and use a meat thermometer and check it regularly.) The ribs may take a minimum of three hours but the roast beef, depending on size will usually be less than an hour.
Jesus the best way to cook ribs?
Why don’t you put this in Great Debates or just drop in straight into the pit so we can go ahead and tell off the heathens who don’t know how to cook ribs. 
Where I come from getting boiling water anywhere near a rack of ribs should be a hanging offence. I boiled some ribs once. I would like to emphasize the word once. Even after cooking them in smoke and BBQ sauce I could still taste and smell that funny boiled pork fat taste. YUUCK! Never again. As in all things BBQ your mileage may (and probably will) vary.
Scylla almost got the secret to great ribs right.
What was left out is heat, low and controlled heat. Low and slo is what they call this over on the BBQ board where I hang out. I am not sure that vinegar is an absolute requirement, as I know several pit masters that do not use it, and make award winning ribs.
I do my ribs Memphis style which means they are cooked with only a dry rub and any sauce is served on the side (if at all)
Rick’s ribs to die for:
Racks o ribs You can use spares, St. Louis, or Baby backs. Buy as many as you can fit onto your smoker. I generally do 3 or 4 racks at a time.
Rub There are more rubs out there than you can shake a stick at. I use a lot of rubs from Dizzy Pig BBQ company This is a company that was started by a couple of guys that like to BBQ and took 5 grand championships in 2005 with their competition team.
Anyway I am partial to Dizzy Dust and or Red Eye Express
if you need rubs you could do a lot worse than deal with these guys. No financial interest, just a very happy customer.
Mustard (Optional) Plain ole yellow mustard like French’s.
Prep:
Take the ribs, and with a very sharp paring knife trim as much fat as you can off of the ribs. This is particularly important if you are cooking spares as they have a ton of fat. I know Emeril says pork fat rules, but you can have too much of a good thing. Trust me on this. Many people remove the membrane on the back side of the ribs, but as of late, I have become not so sure of the necessity of this step. If you wish to remove the membrane take a dull knife (butter knife) and work the blade just under the membrane, and lift upward. You are not trying to cut the membrane but rather separate it from the ribs. When you get it up high enough, remove the knife, and using your fingers slowly tear the membrane off. If the membrane itself tears, a paper towel will help grab it again.
Coat the ribs with a good splort of mustard (I guess I do use some vinegar after all since it is in mustard) and sprinkle on you rub. Use lots. Rub the mustard and rub all over the meat. Plop onto a platter cover and place in the fridge.
Cooking:
The heat must be slow, and it must be controlled. I cook my ribs over charcoal on one of these bad boys at 200-250F NO MORE! Ribs take time under low heat to break down the connective tissue. Otherwise you get tough stringy ribs. Set up your unit for however you need to to hold a low temp. Direct or indirect they both come out great, but I have been doing mine direct as of late.
Load the smoker with the wood you are going to smoke with. Meat will only absorb smoke during the first part of the cooking cycle. After the meat temp gets above about 140F no more smoke will absorb. So if you are going to err, use too much wood at the beginning. I like apple, cherry or hickory for ribs. Put the ribs on. You can use a rack or not. It is your choice. I do them both ways. Turn the ribs every so often. If cooking direct every 20-30 minutes the one on the top go to the bottom. If using a rack, flip them over about every 45 minutes. continue this for 3 hours. Get some wide heavy duty foil. Wrap the ribs in large pieces of foil. You want to seal the foil so nothing can escape. You will probably need one package of wrapped ribs for each 1-2 racks or half racks. Place the foil wrapped ribs back onto the cooker and continue to cook for another 45 minutes to 1 hour. Rotate the packets half way through. At the end of this time remove the packets, and unwrap. You will notice that the ribs smell wonderful, the meat has retracted from the tips of the bones, but they do not have that wonderful crust that is the hallmark of Memphis BBQ.
Place the ribs back onto the grill over direct heat, being careful not to tear them in half (at this point the ribs are so close to done, if you grabbed a bone you could pull it out of the meat with just a slight twist) Turn them every 10-15 minutes as the crust develops. When they are all nice and crusty* place them back on a platter. Stand back you don’t want to get run over as the mob heads for the rib plate.
If you insist on sauce add it after the crust is formed, and in the last few minutes of cooking.
You guys are the best. Kroger was selling ribs in 10-lb boxes for $13 each so I think I’m just going to stash them in the freezer and give all these recipes a try.
Now I’m hungry for ribs. I wonder if the neighbors would care if I fired up the grill at 11:30 PM…
(ps: keep ‘em comin’!)
I personally have used Rick’s methods for pork roasts and chicken on the grill and I will testify as to their being the GreatestFreakinBBQIhaveEVEReaten!!
Cook with confidence.
Nic
Nic the ribs are at least that good.
Enjoy, and thanks for the kind words.
I’ve been making country pork ribs. Two inches square, a foot long, and no bones.
Mole powder (ground California chili powder)
Cumin
Garlic salt
Coarse pepper
Savory
Olive oil
Five ribs should fit into a one-gallon Zip-Loc bag. Mix the dry ingredients to taste. I guess I put about equal amounts of mole powder and cumin into a 2-cup measuring cup. I just sort of wing it with the other spices. Add the olive oil until you have enough, and mix it all together. Give it a little taste. It’s going to taste like spices mixed in olive oil, but you can get an idea of how it will turn out. The first time I made it I didn’t put in quite enough garlic salt. Pour the marinade into the bag with the ribs. Seal the bag and kneed it a bit to make sure the ribs are well coated. You can let them sit in the mixture while the coals are lit and burning down; but I like to marinate them overnight, turning them a couple/few times and making sure they’re nicely covered. Cook on all sides over the coals until they are done. You’ll want to use the cover, as they’ll flame up rather a lot if you don’t.
I’ve used the same marinade with some lime juice in it when I made a cheap piece of steak. You might want to add some lemon or lime juice for the pork, but I haven’t done it yet.
For a side dish coarsely chop some onions and cook them in butter. Cut an/some apple(s) into sixths and add the pieces to the onion. Toss in a few raisins, and sprinkle a little bit of cinnamoon and nutmeg on everything. Cook until the apples are heated, but not mushy.
Scylla, we made your ribs recipe for friends today, and they all agreed they were the best m’fing ribs on the face of the planet. Well worth all the hassle in fighting off the damn ninjas.