Jurassicpork Ribs

Pork ribs are a 4 – 6 hour process depending on temperature, weight of meat and cooker.  Three parts to the cooking process:

1. Smoke with rub for 2 hours (meat cooks to at least 165 degrees)
2. Ribs are wrapped in foil, for 2 hours
3. Removed from foil – finishing sauce added while the ribs “dry up”

RIB PREPARATION

We recommend baby-back ribs, they have move meat and consistency in size as compared to lower belly cuts like St. Louis cuts.  Remove the membrane on the bone side, start the process with a popsicle stick or a phillips screwdriver against the bone, in the middle of the rack.  Get your fingers under the membrane, you should be able to pull the membrane off, may need a paper towel.

Any lose bones should be cut off

Cut off any excessive fat from the top side of the ribs

SMOKING – FIRST 2 HOURS

Create a rub – the same rub you use on other pork cuts should work fine.  Apply rub on both sides and the edges, you can let them “sit” for a couple of hours before going into the smoker, but our experience, this doesn’t really change the final product

Try to use fruit wood with your charcoal for ribs (apple, peach, cherry)

Pork only takes smoke 165 degrees – after that you are just cooking to render fat from the meat and getting it to desired temperature of around 190 degrees

FOIL – SECOND 2 HOURS

For each rack you will need 1/3 cup of brown sugar,  we add a touch of cinnamon to the brown sugar, you can include a touch of chili powder or whatever you want

Place the ribs on the foil, meat size down, put the brown sugar in the cavity (on the bones).  Wrap up tight and back in the smoker  (meat side down so the brown sugar is facing up) for at least an hour

The sugar must melt down in the foil

FINISH – LAST HOUR

Be careful when removing ribs from the foil, there should be a lot of “juice” and the ribs will want to fall apart and the meat will contracted on the bones.

You will need a finishing sauce – use your favorite BBQ Sauce, add a small amount of honey.  We add rice wine vinegar and raspberries to the finishing sauce.

Put the ribs back on the smoker, apply the finishing sauce a couple of times while the ribs are firming up.  The ribs are really just sitting at this point waiting to be served.