BBQ Ribs....Not all cuts are created equally..

[Neal]

Over the past several years, I've worked at honing my skills at making quality BBQ Ribs. Normally I prefer to use baby backs. However, due to an aparent "run" on the lower priced "previously frozen" versions, I was compelled to either buy Fresh at a ridiculous markup or use St. Louis style.

Normal price in these parts for the run of the mill previously frozen baby backs...$3.57 and down. the Fresh: $5.99/lb. Uhhhh unless these came from magic pigs which will give me some mystical powers....No.

So the other stores being out of the lesser expensive ones, I used St. Louis Cut.

The reviews were not nearly as positive after this cook. The St. Louis style are more meaty, but they are way more difficult to get tender. The meat was tasty and juicy, but they were quite firm. (my family prefers a more tender meat). 6 hours of cook time...Not sure 8 would have done any more for them.

I will be hard pressed to do the St. Louis style again. baby Backs from here on out.

[atgcpaul]

I pay about $3.50/lb for the St. Louis style ribs at Costco here--DC metro. I think I've had good results with my past cooks. I have not tried baby backs but I don't want to pay for them. It is crazy how much the price of pork has gone up. The price of beef is at $1 more than it was last year, too.

What's your BBQing rig? I bought a used Big Green Egg and am loving it! I setup a dual level cooking grate using two Weber grill grates and stainless steel hardware from HD.

I can cook the whole 2 slabs of Costco ribs--I want to say it's usually 10lbs--in one cook. They lay flat on the grates.

I apply a rub the night before and stick the ribs in the fridge.

In the morning I load up the BGE with lump. I used to light a handful of lump in a chimney starter and then pour it on top, but I now just nestle a paraffin starter cube in the center and start it.

I close the dome and let the BGE settle in around 250 and then dump two generous handful of hickory pellets made for a Traeger smoker. I don't soak them. Then I quickly setup for indirect grilling and start.

I cook to temperature and am usually done by later afternoon--probably 6 hours.

I personally think these ribs are tastier than ANY ribs I've bought at the store.

This coming Sunday on Father's Day, we're hosting a BBQ with some church friends. I've got ribs on the menu as well as pork shoulder. I have a turkey roasting rack that I'm going to try to use to vertical cook the ribs. That way I can cook the ribs and the shoulder at the same time.

I've got to check the freezer for steaks. If I have any ribeyes (my favorite cut), I'll crank the heat up at the end and cook off some steaks.

I 'm going to do chicken thighs and hot dogs, too, but I'll probably end up doing them on the gas grill.

Paul

[capncarl]

I can't say enough good about my Big Green Egg. Ill load it up with a butt or 2 and set the Dig-i-q for 180f and let it go. 24 hours later I bump it up to 200 to finish it off. Pizza is another hit if you have not tried it. You have to really try hard to mess something up on and egg.

[Black wallnut]

I prefer St. Louis style and often just grill them for 2.5-3 hours(longer if I can keep the temp down) in my Char Griller with lots of smoke. Red oak and maple off cuts soaked in water first after cutting into 8"x1/4" strips. I rotate the ribs every 30 minutes, flipping them over and moving them down away from the fire. I stat with some coals(briquets) in one end of the griller plus more in the side box. As they cook I only add briquets and smoking wood to the side box. I try to keep the heat 225-250° F. When I am successful they are awesome, when they get too warm they get a mite crispy but the centers are always moist. I use a rub with sea salt, cayenne, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and a few other spices. I use this rub on nearly everything I grill from chicken to pork roasts.

[marc82much]

Over the past several years, I've worked at honing my skills at making quality BBQ Ribs. Normally I prefer to use baby backs. However, due to an aparent "run" on the lower priced "previously frozen" versions, I was compelled to either buy Fresh at a ridiculous markup or use St. Louis style.

Normal price in these parts for the run of the mill previously frozen baby backs...$3.57 and down. the Fresh: $5.99/lb. Uhhhh unless these came from magic pigs which will give me some mystical powers....No.

So the other stores being out of the lesser expensive ones, I used St. Louis Cut.

The reviews were not nearly as positive after this cook. The St. Louis style are more meaty, but they are way more difficult to get tender. The meat was tasty and juicy, but they were quite firm. (my family prefers a more tender meat). 6 hours of cook time...Not sure 8 would have done any more for them.

I will be hard pressed to do the St. Louis style again. baby Backs from here on out.

Not that it really matters, but I think you will find that all BBQ competition ribs are St. Louis style. Not baby backs. They have less meat and less fat. We just got back from a BBQ weekend in Kansas City...no baby backs.

[atgcpaul]

My wife made about 2 cups of rub more than 2 years ago. I used it all up on my second cook. My sister sells Scentsy products (wickless candle melts to make your house smell nice). They sell rubs now and she gave me one BBQ rub to try. I mix it 1:1 with brown sugar and now use that exclusively for any pork. For beef, I stick with Kosher salt and pepper.

[Neal]

I use a smoke hollow propane fired smoker. It has a propane burner, a water pan and a chip box. It works very well. I find the sweet spot on the temp valve and the temps will stay constant. My only gripe is the cleanup. But a little aluminum foil and a jug of greased lightning ease that a bit.

Used a chargriller offset for a few years. It was a Pain to keep dialed in and constant. Did all kinds of things to help, but the fuel consumption and variation was the biggest problem for me. I Used lump, and wood chunks in it. Temp variations were all over the map which impacted the quality of Kingsford worked better, but the taste was not as good. I wanted something I could dial in and walk away from and know that when I came back it would still be at 225-230. That and getting up at all hours of the night to put more fuel in was not my favorite thing to do.

I'll admit, I cheat. I cheat a lot. I have no desire to compete at the KCBS level, so my focus is squarely on the easiest way (for me) to get the best en result. I used to own a barbecue restaurant (which died a painful miserable death....long story that I'll keep to myself). I did learn some interesting tricks which have improved the quality of the finished product (which is what it is all about IMO). Butalong the way I learned a few tricks that still produced outstanding finished product, with some alternative techniques.

6 hours worth of cook time for the St. Louis ribs....maybe another two would have done the trick to get them where my family prefers them. I know my end customers prefer the baby backs.

[atgcpaul]

I'll admit, I cheat. I cheat a lot. I have no desire to compete at the KCBS level, so my focus is squarely on the easiest way (for me) to get the best en result.

I belong to a BBQ forum which is pretty much dedicated to the Big Green Egg (eggheadforum.com). However, I don't see why those techniques couldn't be applied to your setup.

All the rage over there seems to be to "turbo" cook everything. I'm still "green" with all this BBQ stuff so I stick to low and slow, but with turbo, they're cooking at a higher heat for less time and I think it's wrapped in foil. Even the die hard folks seem to be loving it. Might want to look into that to cut your cook times down with what appears to be excellent results.

[leehljp]

FRESHNESS:

I have a close relative that owns a BBQ restuarant in Memphis and has several Mid-South, Memphis in May BBQ Winners in different categories under his belt as well as cook-offs in other States. His fresh BBQ is absolutely great, but the restaurant is only "very good" IMO. The reason: Restaurant BBQ is not usually fresh off the grill / smoker moments ago.

Once a person starts making BBQ at home and doing it right, that "just now done" is impossible to beat no matter what kind or type of meat/sauce/seasoning of restaurants. While my left over ribs are great the day after, there is nothing like that fresh off the grill/smoker taste. Kind of like fried/fire broiled fish just caught in the last hour or so! WOW!

[capncarl]

IMO BBQ pork is best just off the grill. We have an old BBQ restaurant that cooks their meat all day and turns off the grill and takes the meat off and puts in the refrigerator. The next day it is dried out yesterday's that should not be served in a BBQ restaurant. Everyone complains but they still come back. Pure lazy in my book.
The dig-I-q controller will keep the temp in about any grill within 1 degree of set point.

Myron mixon and the rescue smokers on TV were just down the road from us at the big pig jig, strutting their stuff last week. Too much scripted drama. My favorite is mr BBQ, Ray lampe. I took several of his BBQ cooking classes at the big green egg HDQ in atl.

[Neal]

I agree completely about the fresh out of the cooker. One of my favorite thugs when I owned the restaurant was to do some quality control when the timer went off on the rob cooker. Yes we had ways to maintain them to keep a quality product, but nothing at all beat that taste when the timer went off.

I always time my ribs to be done cooking about 20-30 mins before they hit the grill if possible. Saturday it was 45 mins because of some other issues.

Butts I do over night and keep them in the oven at 170 degrees until I need it. I try to pull it just before we eat it though. No real degradation happens he way I do it. I can't tell all of my secrets, though.

[atgcpaul]

Butts I do over night and keep them in the oven at 170 degrees until I need it. I try to pull it just before we eat it though. No real degradation happens he way I do it. I can't tell all of my secrets, though.

If this is a secret you can't divulge, OK, no prob. Do you do any injections in your butts? (Hehe). I'm doing my first shoulder this weekend and I think I need to do an injection in addition to the rub. I have actually done a whole pig on a spit before and I did an injection (YUM), but since the shoulder is so much smaller than a whole pig but thicker than a slab of ribs, I'm not sure.

[capncarl]

Everything that anyone could possibly need to know about cooking anything on a bbq is covered very well at amazingribs.com. It covers the stall better than I have ever seen it explained.

[Neal]

I would not be a good government agent...

I do not inject my butts with anything, never had much of a need.

My Butt smoking process is like this (and I did learn part of this from my restaurant experience....

I use a rub which basically consists of Brown Sugar, Salt, Pepper, Dried CHipotle Pepper, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Oregano and cinamon. I reserve about an 1/8 to 1/4 cup for later use.

I smoke them with Hickory, which is soaked overnight in water.

I smoke them for 6 hours at around 220-230.

After 6 hours, I pull them off the cooker, and WRAP them tightly with restaurant grade plastic wrap, twice. Put them in a pan and cover with heavy foil. I could return them to th smoker, but generally I finish them in the oven at 225*. The logic here is after 6 hours, the amount of smoke penetration is minimal at best.

Once the 12-14 hour mark is passed (in total....6-8 in the oven depending on size of butt), I turn the ovendown to 170 to hold them until I need them.

Wrapping them Traps all of the natural juices from the pork. Generally you will see the fluid around the bottom of the butt, an 8 lb butt will yield about 1/2 cup of juice. When you Puncture the wrapping, reserve the juices and put in either a gravy seporator or a measuring cup to let the fat seperate from the juices. Drain off the fat and set aside. Putting the vessel in the refridgerator expedites the process of sepeartion as the fat will solidify on the top and make removal easier. Simply reheat the remaining juice in the microwave.

Once the meat is pulled and the fatty parts removed as best as I can, I sprinkle the rub I set aside in the meat and pour the juice back on and mix it thoroughly. The results are as good as any restaurant I've ever tried.

Ribs...

Of course the required prep--trimming and skinning is done the night before. I also rub them down the night before.

Smoke them for 2-2.5 hours at 220-230. Pull them from the smoker an put them in a baking pan (usually one of the cheap foil pans) on a rack. Put apple juice, and water in the bottom of the pan, and cover the pan with the restaurant grade plastic wrap and then heavy foil, and cook for another 2-3 hours at same temperature (sometimes in the oven sometimes in the cooker--just depends).

[eccentrictinkerer]

I've been a fan of smoking meat for about 20 years. I always got OK results, but never achieved perfection.

I was discussing the article linked here with my butcher and said it sounded good, but asked if I had ever tried doing the pork shoulder in an oven bag.

I hadn't and went home and tried it. Nearly perfect. Tender, moist and the flavor was perfect. But, I missed the smoke.

I then tried smoking the the meat (I like apple wood) for 5 hours at about 220 degrees and then into the oven in a bag for another 4 to 5 hours or until internal temp is 170 degrees.

Perfection!

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/perfect-pulled-pork-slow-roasted-seasoned-savory.html