spare ribs florida style

[tasunkawitko]

FiU - i agree with your cautions on the lemon-lime juices overnight. i finally decided to go with what i planned, just prep the ribs this morning.

i don't have access to sugar cane - closest thing we would have would be molasses - perhaps that instead of brown sugar in the glaze?

i like the idea of serving with sliced oranges ~ will put that into action and will also use pineapple juice in the glaze rather than lemon and lime-aid. instead, i will serve those as beverages.

so here's what we have -

spare ribs and country style ribs -

rub - baste with lemon and lime juice, then a light film of mustard, then rub with lemon pepper and red pepper flakes added.

mop (ocassional, not every hour on the hour) - squirt/orange juice/teriyaki sauce and olive oil

finishing glaze - equal amounts of mustard, pineapple juice and dark brown sugar (or perhaps molasses).

serve with orange slices.

will hold temps around 250.

i'll also be smoking a mess of trout that we caught yesterday, rainbow and cutthroat. will season those and then smoke for an hour and a half or so, maybe two hours, on the cooler side of the smoker, closer to 220 or 225.

the neighbor kid caught a good-sized carp yesterday and asked if i would throw it on there for him - what the heck - might as well!

 

[tasunkawitko]

alright - prep work is done -

i've got the sares and the CS ribs sitting in the fridge. i squirted them with lemon and lime juice, then slathered them with a thin coat of dijon mustard, then added the rub. the rub might be just a little too "hot" as in red pepper flakes - we'll see how it turns out. i am thinking a lot of the heat will cook off with the slow smoke.

will prepare the mop soon and try to get these babies on the grate at noon. we're shooting for a 5pm sit-down for supper, so i think that will work fine. if it's a little alter, 530 or 6, no big deal. will start posting q-view when i put them on!

 

[tasunkawitko]

ok - getting a little bit later start than intended due to charcoal that wasn't quite "wet," but sure wasn't dry, either. i'm looking to get the meat on the gate by 1230 at the altest, hopefully earlier.

things look to be going well, other thqan that. i'll be smoking with hickory and using thelast of my kingsford briquettes - when they run out, i will switch over to the last of my kingsford lump.

 

[tasunkawitko]

mop recipe:

3/4 cup squirt
3/4 cup orange juice concentrate (no pulp)
1/4 cup kikkoman teriyaki sauce (homemade would have been better)
1/4 cup olive oil

looks good, smells good, tastes good.

 

[bmudd14474]

Cant wait to see how it turns out. Good luck.

 

[tasunkawitko]

appreciate the vote of confidence, bmudd!

as of 1215, i've got the ribs and trout on. there wasn't quite room for the carp, but will put them on later since DJ (the neighbor kid) won't be coming over until later this afternoon - by then the trout should be done and i'll have much more room.

i've got the thick country style ribs right up front on the left side of the smoking chamber, then the thicker spares, then the thnner spares, then the trout.

the entire SnP is filled up, except for a 3-inch circle containing my chimney extension, which reaches down and kisses the grate in order to kieep smoke and heat drawing completely across the smokeing chamber, rather than shooting straight up in a diagnal toward the far corner as it was before.

the camera is in our van at my wife's palce of work, but will get pictures in a bit when she gets home - about 230 or 3 pm.

 

[bigsteve]

Man you make a ton of food every weekend. Do you cook once, and then eat all this for dinner during the week? I should do that. I'm the cook around here. I come home from work and have to come up with something for dinner every night (except Pizza night.) I should just cook once on the weekend for the whole week. That would be a good excuse to buy a vacum sealer thingy.

 

[tasunkawitko]

hey, steve -

tnight, my parents are coming over for supper; ples we have four kids (well, three are still at home), so we go through food pretty fast. i can promise you, however, that an investment in a vacuum sealer is a great idea!

pulled pork and brisket seem , to me, just as good the next couple of days as they are on the day they are smoked - with that in mind, i say do yourself a big chunk of meat, then save it for lunches or a couple of suppers throughout the week.

as for pizza night ~ nothing should interfere with that, especially if it is homemade!

i just got back from running an errand that took twice as long as it should have - my 16-yr old (17 in a couple of weeks) was minding the pit while i was goine. am going to get look at the situation on the pit and maybe get a pic or two. everything was smelling good when i got back and temps as far as i could tell were all good. we REALLY need to get a reliabe thermometer - preferably a two-probe digital one!

 

[tasunkawitko]

success! this stuff turned out great! i never get compliments on my food, even when it is good, but this got high praise.

here's a pic of some of the feast - we started out with 9 trout, mixed between cutthroat and rainbow trout, but we ate a few as the cooking was going on. also, be warned - the food is much darker than it should ahve been due to an abundance of sugar in the rub. this was the last of a big batch of rub that i made and the next batch will have either sugar in the raw (turbinado sugar) or none at all. other than the extra-dark surface resulting from this factor, everything was 100% successful.

right after this pic was taken, we brushed the glaze on both sides of everything and waited 15 minutes or so for sides to finsh up. i moved everything over for the picture, but note the chimney pipe extension, which means that i had to move a few things around in order to close the door.

results, as i said above, were great! the citrus flavors all went well together, the occasional mop was present but didn't overwhem, and the thin glaze did its job very well and provided a little kick that comes from making good ribs just a little better. for the whole thing, a very good balance between sweet, spicy, salty and tangy.

here's the "formula" again for everything. i am sure there is room for improvement as with nearly any recipe, but this worked extremely well and i can recommend it to anyone wanting to put a floridian or tropical twist on something.

RUB

before applying the rub, squirt or brush on some lemon juice, then some lime juice (or combine the two and then apply!).

brush on a thin layer of yellow mustard on both sides, then apply the rub to your preference on both sides - i prefer it to be on there pretty heavily, but any amount will do. pretty much any "standard" rub will work - low sugar, no sugar or raw sugar is highly recommended. if you use a store-bought rub, i recommend durkee's st' louis style pork rub.

to this, add some lemon powder (recommended), lemon pepper or a seasoning that i had way in the back of my cabinet called "lemon and herb seasoning." add as much as you want to taste and then add a few crushed red pepper flakes to taste; keep in mind that the "spicy hot" properties of the pepper flakes will diminish on a slow cook, so add just a tiny bit more than you think you will want.

because of the lemon and lime juices, i only let this sit a few hours because i wasn't sure if sitting overnight would "harm" the meat. allow me to stress that for all i know, it could have sat overnight just fine. if someone can provide an answer to this, let me know. in any case, a few hours was fine, but overnight (as long as the acid in the juices don't harm the meat) would probably be better.

when i put the meat on the grill, there was a good amount of "juice" left on the platter from the citrus juices - i dribbled this over the meat, taking care not to disturb the rub.

MOP - this turned out great!

• 3/4 cup of squirt (grapefruit-flavored pop)
• 3/4 cup orange juice concentrate (pulp free if using a spray bottle)
• 1/4 cup kikkoman (or homemade) teriyaki sauce
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• *optional - add some dark or spiced rum if you want (to taste), but i am not sure of the value of this addition

use this mop as much or as little as you want while cooking. a good time to add it is when you are tending the fire or adding wood chunks. speaking of wood, i used hickory for this and results were excellent. something else (lemon wood, perhaps) would probably have been just as good!

FINISHING GLAZE

combine equal amounts (1/3 or 1/2 cup recommended) of

• plain, yellow mustard
• pineapple juice
• dark brown sugar (if you want to experiment, try molasses and let me know how it goes)

heat in a small saucepan over medium heat - be careful not to get it too hot, but make sure that everything is blended well together, then let cool a bit. brush a thin layer on both sides about 15 minutes or so before BBQ is done, then again just as you are taking it off the grill. should be a thin glaze that adds a bit of color and also a nice crackle to the ribs, can be used as a sauce if you want, but i don't recommend it that way.

if you have come this far, then your spare, baby back or country style ribs are done. this probably would have also worked very well for pork shoulder, too - it was THAT good.

serve up according to your preferred method - thinly-sliced lemons, limes or oranges or grapefruit (or any combination of the four) can be used as a garnish and also as a source of a little extra "finishing squeeze."

time to pig out!

if anyone tries this, please report on results and especially any variations that you try and how well they worked out.

thanks for sticking with me through this innovation - i think the results were worth it!

 

[tasunkawitko]

i forgot to mention - we put on the carp right after taking all this off. a couple of hours alter, it was done and was a heck of a lot better than i thought it would be!

all we did with this was sprinkle on a local seasoning called apline touch, which is a combination of salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. let it sit for a few hours, then smoked over hickory.

i was very, very skeptical - if you've never seen a carp, it is one of the ugliest, grossest-looking fish you've ever seen, and the rivers they come out of usua;;y don't look much better, wither, but since it is spring and the waters are still cold and relatively clear, we tried it. i am a believer now!

 

[rivet]

Excellent post Tas~ and great instructions too. I'm curious to taste the glze...it sounds like you all really enjoyed it. I have a bunch of thick cut porck chope I may put it on. Your shot of the food on the smoker was outstanding! Well done, everything looked delicious.....and congratulations on the chimney extension too!

Glad to hear your Floridian Twist idea was a success!