<p>I’ll share our homemade rib rub recipe simply because I believe everyone should enjoy a good rack of southern baby backs as much as we do. </p>
<p>8 parts packed brown sugar
3 parts Kosher salt
1 part chili powder
½ part black pepper
½ part cayenne pepper
½ part jalapeno powder or extra chili powder
½ part Old Bay seasoning or any Cajun/seafood spice mix (We used “Slap Yo’ Mama” brand).
½ part thyme
½ part onion powder</p>
<p>Peel film away from back of ribs and generously apply rub to both sides of ribs. Place ribs in a plastic bag (we usually grill several racks at once, so we use a trash bag) and then store in refrigerator overnight. Remove ribs from bag and sear both sides on hot grill. Remove from grill and wrap each rack tightly in heavy-duty aluminum foil. Turn burners to half the grill off and turn the other burners to low. Place the ribs on their sides on the upper rack (no heat side) and snuggle them right up one to the other. Approximately six hours and several beers later, remove the ribs from the aluminum foil and finish them on direct heat to get a bit of a crispy skin. If you like wet ribs, brush with Sweet Baby Ray’s original bbq sauce. YUM! My mouth is watering for ribs now so I guess I’ll have to pick some up at the store later this week to prepare for the weekend. </p>
<p>If you decide to market this recipe, I’ll be expecting credit and half the proceeds. :)</p>
<p>Just to be clear, when I say place them on their side, I mean in an upright position on their sides … envision the letter “c” sitting on your grill.</p>
<p>Splash…wow…sounds great. But since I only live about an hour away from you…lol…I may follow the good smells and just show up. MOWC doesn’t live far away either. You’re gonna need 2 trashbags. </p>
<p>just kiddin’</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I understand the part about putting them on the “no heat” side, but when you say the “upper rack”, do you mean the little rack that is above the main grill? </p>
<p>I don’t think I’ve ever seen jalapeno powder. </p>
<p>Just checked my spice cabinet. I do have dried jalapeno pepper flakes…I’ll just pulverize those.</p>
<p>Have any of you used a 'smoker box" for wood chips? I got one to try and I am getting some “smoke”. I got a few different bags of wood chips. One bag has “chips” that aren’t really chips, they’re more like BIG CHUNKS, and they’re too big for the smoker box. What do I do with those?</p>
<p>I use Famous Daves Rib Rub. To make baby back ribs, rub Dijon mustard on the ribs and refrigerate for a few hour (this will make the meat tender and fall off the bone). Then apply the rib rub and garlic powder. Bake in the oven for 3 hours at 300 degrees and generously apply Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce for the final hour of cooking</p>
Come on, then! Put your sniffer to work on Saturday. :)</p>
<p>
Yes, though we have used the main rack, too, so either would be fine. I just don’t like to chance them getting over-done. When we cook them on the lower rack, I make sure to turn them halfway through the cook time. Avoid any tears in the aluminum foil as this allows juices to escape and may cause ribs to be dry. </p>
<p>Suddenly the chicken salad I made for dinner this evening doesn’t sound as good as it did. I’m craving ribs, baked beans, corn on the cob, cole slaw and a big glass of sweet iced tea.</p>
<p>
DH uses wood chips (after soaking them in water for several hours) occasionally. He especially likes to use them when he cooks on the Big Green Egg. I don’t really care much for smoke-flavored foods, so he doesn’t use them often.</p>
<p>My husband makes his own rub and sauce, depending on the type of meat. We have found this to be less salty then the store-bought, and we can add as much spice as we like.</p>
<p>As far as the wood chips, the bigger ones can go in with the charcoal. You can add as much or as little wood flavoring as you like.</p>
<p>We have quite a supply of different types, depending whether it is beef, pork, etc. </p>
<p>And, we use the cedar planks for salmon. Don’t even need any rub or sauce, with the planks.</p>
<p>Check out some BBQ books (not grillling), if you want to learn more about how to use wood chips.</p>
<p>The real secret to baby back ribs is to remove the membrane on the bottom of the slab before cooking. I use an oyster shucking knife to get under an edge at one end and lift enough to grab. Then, I grab that egde with a paper towel, and pull it off the whole slab, with luck, in one piece. It’s like pulling a big sticky label off something. Go slowly, and try not to tear it…</p>
<p>Not that I know. Around here, baby backs come shrink wrapped, two slabs to a package. They freeze really well after they are cooked, so when I’m going thru the bother of cooking them I try to do extras and freeze them into single dinner portions for grab and go dinners.</p>
<p>I smoke mine on a Weber charcoal smoker at 225 degrees (give or take) for four to six hours. I usually do pork butts at the same time. Those freeze well too, slice into single dinner portions. The butts smoke for 12 to 14 hours. So I start those in the morning. Put the baby back on early afternoon for dinner that night, and then keep the butts going until they are done (pulled pork tender starts at around 195 degrees internal temperature).</p>
<p>They key is the low cooking temp (225 degrees). That’s basically like pot roast in braising liquid – the temperature is not high enough to “boil” off the liquid in the meat, so it stays really moist even after cooking all day and rendering off all the fat.</p>
<p>The foil method is basically cooking it like a pot roast, which is fine, but not necessary if you can keep the cooking temp low. The meat literally falls off the bone on my ribs after 4 to 6 hours if I can keep the temps in the 200 to 240 range the whole time. With a good thermometer, that should be pretty easy to do on a gas grill and the ribs not directly over the heat. Real easy in an oven.</p>
<p>I have found that, with these long cooking times, you want to go real easy on the wood chips. I use chips when I first put the ribs on, enough to smoke for maybe 30 minutes, and that’s it.</p>
<p>Bone Suckin’ Rub and Bone-Suckin sauce. Yummy. Good on everything for barbeque.
Montreal Steak seasoning is great too for steaks and pork chops.</p>
<p>If you are salt sensitive, stay away from the factory packaged pork and ribs from companies like Hormel and Smithfield. They are packaged in a saline solution so if you try to add a rub or sauce with salt they can get super salty.</p>
<p>I like to cook Boston butts for pulled pork and babyback ribs pretty much as InterestedDad described…low and slow. I use a Green Egg with the platesetter in, but you could use any good charcoal grill. I prefer natural wood lump charcoal. I stock up like a squirrel before winter because sometimes it’s not the easiest to find then. If I add a few pieces of hickory, I do so sparingly and not for a long period of time. Personally, I think everything tastes better on a charcoal grill and it is very easy to regulate the temperature on the Egg, so I don’t worry if I have to run out for a bit and leave it cooking. I slice the racks of ribs to fit nicely into my rib racks to cook standing. I like to wrap some Yukon gold potatoes in foil with butter and sea salt and cook them at the same time.</p>
<p>For sauce, our family prefers Sweet Baby Rays for any meat where the sauce will be added during cooking. Our family is split on sauces for pulled pork. My dad owned a BBQ place in Tuscaloosa and had his own sauce. I’m working to duplicate his sauce since he died before sharing it with me. Some of the family likes the Dreamland sauce, some Williams Brothers, and some like Archibald & Woodrows. For wings, we all love the sauce from Archibald & Woodrow’s and we pick some up each time we visit.</p>
<p>We use a combination of Big Byron’s Butt Rub and Lowry’s for a rub for most meats. Butt Rub is much spicier.</p>
<p>Two things at my house that my husband isn’t allowed to go near…my grill and my lawnmower. I’m happiest when I’m using one or both of them.:)</p>
<p>I buy all of my meat at Costco. They have the best Boston butts (boneless) I’ve found and the prices are excellent. I also buy my steaks, ribs, pork chops, and disjointed fresh wings there. I don’t buy whole chickens there or chicken pieces there. When you pick out a BB, look for darker ones with nice marbling. We also look for the darker meat on ribs because darker and lighter pork does have different texture. For chops we look for those with the larger “fillet” side similar to choosing Tbones.</p>
<p>I like a simple teriyaki marinade for a flank or skirt steak. Equal parts soy sauce and rice wine or dry sherry, with spoonful of crushed fresh ginger, some black pepper, garlic if you like it, and a sprinkle of brown sugar. Put the steak in a Ziploc bag with some marinade (less than a cup) and let it sit for a few hours. You can mix the sauce right in the bag, since the proportions aren’t very important. Grill rare or medium rare.</p>
<p>I used to use Tom Douglas rubs, but I mostly use marinades that I make.
I recently made a mustard vinaigrette for new York steak that I was putting into a salad that turned out really well.
I also use rice vinegar, & light tamari to make a marinade for king salmon.
With the salmon I used alder chips, but I didn’t use any with the beef.
We don’t eat pork, it’s mostly salmon and other fish & chicken for protein with occasional steak or hamburgers.</p>
<p>I haven’t tried the bone suckin sauce, I do like “ghetto gourmet” out of Portland. ( I think Portland has even less of a ghetto than Seattle does)</p>
MOWC doesn’t live far away either. You’re gonna need 2 trashbags.