Smoked Ribs
Food: Smoked baby back (pork) ribs
Temperature: 275°
Cooking time: 5:30
Wood used: Apple
Notes: Cooked using minion method to start charcoal, then the popular 3-2-1 cooking method for ribs, spraying regularly with apple juice.
OK, it’s time to smoke some ribs. I’ve tried out the smoker on a couple of chickens and learned how to use it a little, so it’s time to make something I love… pork ribs!
I decided to try a popular way of cooking ribs called the 3-2-1 Method. Basically, you cook the ribs uncovered for three hours, then sauce and wrap them for two more hours, then cook them uncovered with another layer of sauce for one more hour. I deviated from this slightly in that the last hour was too long — the ribs were already at ready temperature — so I only cooked them about 35 minutes.
I prepared two racks of ribs, one using my homemade rib rub and another using a commercial rub. After they sat for an hour or so, I tossed them on the smoker at 275° and found other stuff to do. It’s not easy to leave a smoker closed when you’re excited about ribs!
For the sauce, I used Sweet Baby Ray’s Hickory & Brown Sugar Barbecue Sauce. I sprayed the ribs every 30 minutes with apple juice to keep them from drying out. At the three hour mark, I pulled the ribs off the smoker, created a tin foil “boat” for each half-rack and sauced them real good. Placing them in the tin foil boat, I poured a half-cup or so of apple juice over them and sealed them up, being careful not to spill the juice from any seams in the tin foil. I had ordered cotton glove liners and nitrile gloves, which made it a lot easier to work with the ribs than using utensils.
After a couple hours in the tin foil, they were ready to come out and get a second layer of sauce. I put them back on for about 40 minutes and they were back up to 190° pretty quickly. This made me grow concerned that they would dry out, so I pulled them and let them rest under a foil tent. They came out pretty perfect and I can’t honestly say that one rub was better than the other.
The ribs are a fairly significant time commitment — easily over six hours. They’re good — very tender and juicy, great flavor from the rub and the sauce — but would be limited to a weekend day for cooking. I can’t wait to do them again!
