In my day, I have done many a butt, countless wings, logs of bologna, and a couple turkeys, but I had never conquered the almighty RIB! So with a meat sale going on in my local area, I picked up a pack of what I thought was two racks of spares, but it turned out to be 3! So back and forth I went from the forum to youtube learning how to trim up the ribs. After, several videos and running my knife over my diamond steel, I started trimming these bad boys up. I still don't know if I am actually trimming them properly but, you can only learn with experience! So after trimming them up, I put my rub on them and let them rest on the counter for 15 minutes or so before flipping them and coating the under side. Then after another 15 minutes or so, with the Rec Tec fired up to 225 and the AMZN tube smoking good with hickory pellets, on to the racks they went. I didn't discard the trimmings as I wanted to make an appetizer since from what I read, they would be done in about half the time! I came inside and mixed up a "spritz". I am going to call it that even though I didn't have a spray bottle for it to go in, so it just got brushed on every hour. It consisted of apple cider vinegar, a touch of water, and a couple dashes of my rub blended in. Ribs went on at 12:40, were "spritzed" every hour until 3:40, and then taken off to foil at this point. Into the foil they went with parkay and honey on top and bottom, double foiled to prevent any leakage, and back on the smoker. Meanwhile, I sliced up all the trimmings into rib tips, sauced them in foil and through them back on for a bit to get the sauce nice and glazed. The ribs kept trucking on there until 6:00 when I unleashed them from their bonds of foil and sauced them up, also took off the rib tips which were delicious. One rack got a super saucing of Sweet Baby Rays, the second got a light coating of Sweet Baby Rays, and the last rack got coating of the "Money" sauce from Rib Lickers. During this last hour I hand sliced potatoes and heated up the oil for some homemade french fries, as well as throwing on some of the tried and true Bushes Baked Beans. Needless to say I think my first adventure into the rib territory was a success and I will be making more of them soon. I wish I would have got a picture of the bite from the rib. Competition guys would have been jealous of it, if I can say so modestly, it had just the right pull and left a perfect imprint of my chompers! Thanks for reading!
