Pork Ribs

Ribs again?

Yes. Last week I stumbled on a rack of beef ribs, which was rare. And they were great. But beef ribs are a little shy of that satisfying bite. Great flavor, yes, but not a lot of meat. I will note that I took two of them, shaved the meat and made a killer beef rib mac-and-cheese that lasted several lunches.

But it did leave me with a hankering for a good rib. So for this Sunday’s dinner I did my classic St. Louis Rib. I looked through my previous recipes, and it didn’t show up (I will share my recipe blog soon).

This is my non-smoker recipe on a gas grill.

STEP ONE

The rub. I mix powder, garlic powder, paprika, cumin, sea salt (very little to almost none), black pepper, dried basil and cayenne pepper to taste. For ribs I like cumin, but my basic rib for steak or chicken leaves off the cumin.

Dry your ribs with paper towel, you want a crisp outer layer, not steamed during the first cook. Put on your rub and let rest while you heat your grill.

STEP TWO

Put some wood chips (for this I like apple) in foil or a cast iron wood chip box. Get them smoking over high heat.

Spray olive oil on the grill and sear the ribs over high heat. Goal here is great grill marks on both sides.

Keep flipping and cook for about half an hour. Watch for flare-ups.

Wrap the ribs in foil (I usually cut a rib in half before cooking, so here I have two packs). Put them off heat. Keep full heat under the wood chip burner.

Flip the ribs every 30 minutes or so. I do this for about 2 or 3 hours. So if I start cooking at 4 pm, I’m good to eat around 7 pm.

The result in a classic fall-off-the-bone moist rib.

Tonight I served my ribs with a roasted corn on the cob (done in the last 10 minutes) and a harvest crunch salad.

I put a couple lines of Stubb’s BBQ sauce on top. We are getting very close to me cooking up my End-Of-The-School-Year BBQ sauce.