So one of the casualties in my quest to master the pit has been my taste for pork. I'm fairly sensitive to rich foods anyway and after countless shoulders and slabs of ribs I have found myself looking for something a little more balanced than the typical sweet presentations that I have worked so hard to perfect. Now add to this my doctors insistence that I remove starches and sugars from my regular diet, I decided to try something different.
Now, living in the Memphis area, where we know a thing or two about dry ribs I can honestly say, I hate em! Which poses a problem since most sauces are full of sugar. So I decided to start with a sugarless rub and then experiment with mopping the meat with a vinegar based mop somewhere between Texas and Carolina.
Fired up the smoker with half a lit chimney of kingsford comp and a couple oak splits. Rubbed down two slabs of back ribs and put them on. I let them ride for the first two hours and then mopped both slabs. About a hour after that I gave them a quick mop and then foiled one rack with butter and brown sugar. I continued to mop the other slab every time I added another split until I had a good bend. I tried to go by Smokin Al's temp method but I was getting crazy temp variations, probably due to mopping, so in the end I just let the ribs tell me when they were done.
With the foiled slab I tried to just rest it instead of my normal sear. I took it off about 45 min before the other slab and then let them both rest on the counter before slicing.
The foiled slab did not slice very well so next time I will go back to searing them after the foil.
So here they are on the plate. I just did a bowl of salad so no good plated shot. The bottom bone is the foiled slab. They had great flavor and were super tender. But they were as expected a little too rich for my belly. The top were the " hot ribs." They came out great. Not as super tender as I prefer but they agreed with me better. My daughter loved them and they were what she went back for so I think they will stick around.
Hope everyone has a great smoke filled weekend!
Lance
Now, living in the Memphis area, where we know a thing or two about dry ribs I can honestly say, I hate em! Which poses a problem since most sauces are full of sugar. So I decided to start with a sugarless rub and then experiment with mopping the meat with a vinegar based mop somewhere between Texas and Carolina.
Fired up the smoker with half a lit chimney of kingsford comp and a couple oak splits. Rubbed down two slabs of back ribs and put them on. I let them ride for the first two hours and then mopped both slabs. About a hour after that I gave them a quick mop and then foiled one rack with butter and brown sugar. I continued to mop the other slab every time I added another split until I had a good bend. I tried to go by Smokin Al's temp method but I was getting crazy temp variations, probably due to mopping, so in the end I just let the ribs tell me when they were done.
With the foiled slab I tried to just rest it instead of my normal sear. I took it off about 45 min before the other slab and then let them both rest on the counter before slicing.
The foiled slab did not slice very well so next time I will go back to searing them after the foil.
So here they are on the plate. I just did a bowl of salad so no good plated shot. The bottom bone is the foiled slab. They had great flavor and were super tender. But they were as expected a little too rich for my belly. The top were the " hot ribs." They came out great. Not as super tender as I prefer but they agreed with me better. My daughter loved them and they were what she went back for so I think they will stick around.
Hope everyone has a great smoke filled weekend!
Lance
