Barbecued Baby Back Ribs Recipe

Journal jlanthripp's Journal: Barbecued Baby Back Ribs Recipe 2

Journal by jlanthripp on Sunday July 31, 2005 @11:36PM

I had to share this with some folks, because this recipe makes the best damn ribs I've ever had. There are a few very important bits to remember when you set out to barbecue. First, cook low and slow. That means low temperatures and long cooking times. Second, the smoke is half the flavor. You cannot get barbecue flavor by sticking raw meat in an oven. You can finish the meat in the oven, but start it on a smoky fire - the smoke flavor gets into the meat best when the smoke hits raw meat. Finally, the kind of wood you use for smoke affects the flavor. I like hickory, some people prefer mesquite. If you're a novice, use charcoal and add wood chips soaked in water to get the smoke. The best barbecue fire uses large wood chunks to replace the charcoal entirely, but that's an advanced topic and takes lots of practice to get right. Don't try a pure wood fire for the first time when you've got 30 friends coming over for barbecue. Charcoal with hickory or mesquite chips can be used to cook some damn fine barbecue.

Ingredients:

(2) racks of baby back ribs
(1) 12 ounce (355ml) bottle of beer (I use Corona or any cheap American pilsner - don't waste good beer on your marinade)
1 cup (236ml) lemon juice
4 tablespoons (60ml) sea salt
1/2 cup (118ml) brown sugar
1 tablespoon (15ml) garlic powder
1 tablespoon (15ml) onion powder
1 teaspoon (5ml) paprika
1 teaspoon (5ml) ground red pepper

Start the night before by putting the ribs in a casserole dish or baking pan just big enough to hold both racks. Add beer and lemon juice and let soak overnight. If the ribs aren't quite covered by the liquid, you can add a little bit of water to cover the ribs - the important thing is that the ribs soak in an acidic solution overnight, preferably one that will add a little flavor (hence beer and lemon juice rather than driveway cleaner).

The next day remove the ribs from the marinade and discard the marinade. Pat the ribs mostly dry with paper towels.

Mix the salt, sugar, garlic powder, paprika, red pepper, and onion powder together. Rub about 1/3 of it into the meat (convex) side of the ribs. It will dissolve and seem to disappear, but quite a bit will make it into the fibers of the meat. This is what you want. Now sprinkle more of the mixture onto the ribs. The first bit that you sprinkle on will get a little wet. Keep sprinkling till there's a thin layer of dry stuff on top of the wet stuff. You'll probably have some left over - put it in an airtight container and refrigerate it for next time :)

Now fire up the grill. This is the tricky part. A double-chamber grill where the firebox is separate from the cooking area is ideal. A regular grill, however, can be used; it'll just be a bit trickier. Use a low, small fire. Use hickory chunks rather than charcoal if you're comfortable using plain wood. Otherwise, you can use charcoal and just add some hickory chips to get the smoke. If you go this route, soak the hickory chips in water for about 30 minutes. Then put them in a basket or something similar and shake off the excess water, and put them on the fire about 10 minutes before you add the ribs. Add a few more chips every so often as the old chips smolder away so it keeps smoking. I'll mention a few ways to regulate temperature in a regular grill further on down. If you're using a good double-chamber grill, just open the damper between the firebox and the cooking chamber a bit more to increase temp, close it a bit to decrease temp.

The fire needs to be a bit smoky. The smoke is very important - this is about 2/3 of the flavor of the ribs. You don't want billowing clouds of smoke, but you do want to see some smoke.

In any case, you want the temperature of the grill with the lid closed to be between 200 and 220 degrees Fahrenheit (93-104C).

Put the ribs on the grill, rib (concave) side down. Close the lid. Keep it closed. Check the temperature every hour. If it falls below 200 degrees Fahrenheit, add some more wood or charcoal and/or open the bottom vents to the grill more and/or close the lid vents to the grill more. If it climbs above 230 Fahrenheit, open the lid vents and close the bottom vents. Cook for about 2 and a half hours. Now coat the ribs with your favorite barbecue sauce, wrap them in aluminum foil, and cook them that way till done. It'll take another hour, maybe an hour and a half, maybe even a touch longer if your fire is on the low end of the acceptable heat range. Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the meat - when it reaches 170 degrees Fahrenheit, it's done.

You can finish the ribs in the oven after you wrap them in foil if you want to (it's hard to keep a low fire going at the right temp for several hours, especially in a regular single-chamber grill). I don't, however, recommend starting them in the oven then transferring to the grill. Remember, the meat picks up the smoke flavor when it's raw, not when it's half-cooked. If you do want to finish cooking them in the oven, just preheat the oven to 220F and put the ribs in there for the last couple hours.

I'd like to take this opportunity to plug a book written by a local author. Smoke in the Mountains - The Art of Appalachian Barbecue is more than simply a collection of barbecue recipes - it teaches you how to be a better barbecue chef, so you can create your own great barbecue recipes to suit your tastes. Kent Whitaker, winner of the Emeril Live Food Network Barbecue Contest, is the author. He stopped by the bookstore where I work and gave me an autographed copy of it a while back, and as a result my barbecue is way better than it was before I got the book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in barbecue.

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