Smokey Barbequed Baby Back Ribs

I’m going to say it: These are the best ribs ever.

Now, you don’t have to believe me, but if you’re going to doubt at least give them a shot to find out. If after you eat them you still think I’m wrong, well, you’re crazy. Certifiably nuts. These ribs and tender and juicy (thank you brine), they are full of flavor (thank you dry rub and smoke), and fabulous with or without sauce. I mean, really, what more could you ask for. They might seem like a bit of work, but it’s pretty much all hands off, so don’t complain, just pick a Saturday that you’re around the house and do it. As usual, full credit isn’t mine, it’s a recipe I slightly adapted from America’s Test Kitchen. The Original was in the Cook’s Illustrated Summer Grilling magazine, Summer 2010.

Also, I did them on a charcoal grill, but I’ll give you the instructions for a gas grill too.

First up, we’ve got to prep the ribs. Lay them out on your counter, back side up.

Slide a pairing knife (on it’s side), along the back of the first bone to lift up the silver skin there. The silver skin is this tough little membrane that makes it hard to chew through the cooked ribs. Lucky for us, once you know how to get it off it’s a piece of cake. It takes a few times to get used to it though, so don’t feel bad it you find it aggravating the first go-round. There’s me holding the little lip of silver skin that we just lifted up.

Now, grab it with some paper towel (because it is nearly impossible to hold onto with bare hands), and pull the silver skin back away from the ribs. You’ll have to hold the ribs down with your other hand.

Ok, here are the ribs, silver skin removed. It’s time to brine them now. Because I was doing it in zip-lock bags I had to cut the racks in half, but if you’re brining in a big bucket you won’t have too.

Here are my ribs split into two bags. I used 3 full racks of ribs total.

Now, make a brine. I just eyeballed it here. Each bag had 1 big bowl of room temperature water with ⅓ cup of sugar and ⅓ cup of salt in it.

Here are the filled bags. If you’re using zip-lock bags, stand them up in a bowl then put them in the fridge, just in case one leaks.

I prepped the dry rub the night before too, just wrap it with plastic wrap so the sugar doesn’t harden. So, mix together the paprika, cumin, chili powder, dark brown sugar (more molasses punch, but you can use light brown if that’s all you’ve got), pepper, salt, oregano, and cayenne pepper.

Alright, it’s the next morning, and Maggie is hell bent on getting her paws on these ribs. Wherever the ribs went, she went.

So, get your ribs out of the brine and pat them dry with paper towels. They’ve got to be dry or else the rub won’t stick, it’ll just clump up on the ribs and your hands.

Get that rub all over both sides of the ribs. What I forgot to show was a big bowl full of wood chips soaking in water. Get them soaking at least 30 minutes before you want them on the grill. I like to use a 25/75 split of hickory and apple wood for ribs. Now it’s on to the BBQ!

Alright, before we hit the pictures I just want to lay out how we’re grilling and smoking these.

On a charcoal grill:

Put a full chimney’s worth of hot coals on one side (hot side) and leave for 10 minutes. Clean the grates and brush with vegetable oil. Add the ribs on the opposite (cool) side of the grill. The cool side should also be the side with the vent, to pull the smoke over the ribs. Keep the top vent half way open, and the bottom ones completely open. Top the coals with a 2 big handfuls of soaked wood chips every 30 minutes, and at the same time, rotate the ribs 180 degrees and front to back, so that the ribs furthest from the coals move closest to the coals. Total cook time is about 3 hours. After 2 hours you may need to add another couple of handfuls of coals if you’re running really low. At 2.5 hours start basting with sauce every 5 minutes if you’re using it.

On a gas grill:

Turn the heat on one burner to high. Add soaked wood chips to a disposable aluminum pan or foil pouch with holes punctured into it and place directly onto the ignited burner. Leave it for about 10 minutes until the bbq is filled with smoke. Clean the grates and brush with vegetable oil. Add the ribs to the cool side of the grill, without any burners on. Every 30 minutes replace the smoke pack with a fresh one and rotate the ribs 180 degrees and swap the ribs closest to the heat with the ones furthest from them. Total cook time will be between 3 and 4 hours, until the meat pulls easily away from the bones. If using sauce baste on throughout the last 30 minutes of cooking, every five minutes, to create a nice, sticky glaze.

Ok, you might be noticing that the ribs are looking different. That’s just because I forgot to take pictures of them on the BBQ. Good thing I did the last time I made them. Here are the ribs right after I put them on the grill. Note all that fabulous smoke!

And here they are about half way through cooking. This time around I didn’t have time to brine them and kept a tray with water under them, but it was a disaster. Please, please brine the ribs. These ones turned out too dry to eat and we ordered a pizza (it wasn’t helped by the fact that I left them on 30 minutes too long as well. Nothing in this world is sadder than my face looking at two racks of inedible ribs).

Alright, back to current day ribs. Now come on! You can not tell me that you don’t want to dive into these right now.

It’s 8:27 am and I am literally drooling. I really wish I had some more ribs in the fridge right now. At this point, after about 3 hours, you are good to go if you don’t like them saucy. These ribs are already packed full of flavor from the rub and the smoke. Me, I like to kill everything with flavor. I also like to go through an entire roll of paper towels cleaning up my face when I eat ribs, so I hit them with the sauce too. My personal is Sonny’s BBQ sauce from the resturant in the states. My wonderful Nana keeps my pantry stocked for me from their trips to Florida.

As I’m outside grilling, my children are inside doing this. Oliver shushed me when I laughed because “We’re reading the paper Mommy”

Now come one. How could you not want to dive into these delicious, sticky, smoky ribs.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

See that rim of pink around the edge of the meat. That’s called a smoke ring. When you see a smoke ring on any meat it means that you’ve done everything fabulously and whatever you’re about to bite into will blow your mind. I can’t make this stuff up, it’s written on a block of stone somewhere.

I’m sorry. Please understand that I REALLY love grilling. I love gas grilling. I love charcoal grilling (and you don’t need anything fancy. That charcoal grill you see me using was $20 the end of last summer on clearance at our local grocery store).

Here’s the printable:

[mpprecipe-recipe:106]