Baby Back Time

Welcome back.   Last time we smoked beef back ribs and they came out amazing.  So I decided that as long as I got the smoker out, and I'm on a roll, why not do baby back pork ribs now.  I hope you're not thinking this is going to be a BBQ blog because it's not.  It is all about what I'm cooking at the moment and it just so happens that 1) I'm craving ribs (again), 2) weather is perfect for BBQ and, 3) cat's still out of the house.

First, a little background on me and pork ribs.  I am Jewish and so you may be asking why is a nice jewish boy smoking pork ribs?  Because they are - wait for it, AWESOMELY DELICIOUS!!  My parents, like a lot of jewish parents of their generation didn't eat "pork" even though they did occasionally cook and serve bacon.  My siblings and I never understood the logic behind "bacon is ok to eat but pulled port, spare ribs, pork chops are persona-non-grata in the Boronkay house."  But whatever, I like pork so I'm eating it.  And I'm still Jewish!!!

Which reminds me of a father/pork story...after my niece's bat-mitzvah, we all went to a vegetarian Chinese restaurant.  This was truly vegetarian.  No exceptions.  There was no meat served even though the dishes had names like "beef and broccoli" and "cashew chicken".   So half-way through the dinner, my brother turns to my dad and says, "Dad, have some of my sweet and sour pork, it taste just like pork!"  My dad, putting down his forkful of beef and broccoli says, "Are you kidding?  You know I don't eat pork.  I ain't eating no pork!"  Love you dad.

Anyway, now about pork ribs.  There are two types - baby backs and spare ribs.  The baby backs aren't as fatty as spare ribs, are smaller than spare ribs, and have their meat on top of the bone as opposed to spare ribs which hold a lot of meat in between the bones.  Personally, I'll eat either of them because they are - wait for it, AWESOMELY DELICIOUS - but when it comes to cooking/smoking, I prefer baby backs.  They're easier to prepare, take less time to cook, and they ALWAYS turn out great.   Plus the BBQ shows on TV are always using spare ribs so I figure, who knows...maybe someone at a network will read my blog, see how - wait for it, AWESOMELY DELICIOUS my baby backs are and will contact me to BBQ for my own TV show.

Probably not.

But maybe.

So let's get started!!

First, I like to use a dry rub on pork ribs as opposed to beef ribs where I only use salt and pepper.  I make my own dry rub and will show you just how easy it is to do.  Please don't think you need to make your own dry rub because there are some amazing dry rubs at your local grocery stores and specialty BBQ shops.  There are also incredible dry rubs on the internet.  Simply navigate to any BBQ site and you'll no doubt see them.  (There, my shameless plug to the BBQ sites for endorsements ;-)  But I make my own because I like my dry rub on the sweeter side rather than the saltier side.  A lot of the prepackaged dry rubs just have too much salt for me.  Here is my mantra for a basic dry rub:

"3 parts of brown sugar to 1 part of everything else except salt and pepper"

So on we go:

• 3 TBS Brown Sugar
• 1 TBS Sweet Paprika
• 1 TBS Garlic Salt
• 1 TBS Onion Salt
• 1 TBS Chili Pepper
• 1 TBS Cumin
• Salt and Pepper to taste (if my reference is TBS as above, I may use 1 to 2 tsp of freshly ground black pepper and 1 tsp of freshly ground pink himalayan salt)

I dump all the above in container, shake, put a label on it, and viola!! The label is important so that when reaching for dry rub, you reach for the right container.  I learned that the hard way. I ruined a great batch of burgers once when I grilled them with what I thought was my dry rub but turned out to be a large container of chili powder.

Now that you have a spice container filled with your delicious rub, you are ready to prep the ribs.  The figure below on the left shows the bone side of the ribs.  You can see the shimmer of the membrane.  What you want to do first is to remove the membrane on the bone side of the ribs.  This allows the smoke to permeate the entire rib.  And it is easy to do!  Use a small hand towel as shown on the right below and grab the end of the membrane.  I start on the side with the smaller ribs.  

Then slowly pull down the entire length of the rib removing the majority of the membrane as shown on the left below. The image on the right below shows the entire rib rack after the membrane has been pulled off - I laid the membrane next to the rib rack so you can see what it looks like. You may need to go back and pull off the little pieces that broke off during the main pull.

With the membrane off, you are now ready to add the rub.  I apply a thin coat of plain yellow mustard to the rack first so that the rub will stick and not fall off as can be seen below on the left.  The mustard does not flavor the ribs at all.  It is mainly a glue to hold the rub in place. Once the mustard is applied, you can sprinkle the rub on.  I add a thin coat of rub making sure that all the mustard is covered.  With the bone side done, you can now flip the rack over and repeat on the meat side. Below on the right is what the rack should now look like.

Your rack is now prepped and ready for fire and smoke.  I used the Minion Method again and prepped my fire with ample pieces of cherry wood.  Then I placed the ribs on the top rack and covered the smoker

So with prep done and ribs in a covered smoker, it is now time for the hard part - THE WAIT!!  Pork baby back ribs take about 4 hours at 220-225 degrees.  Remember, this is the critical point where you are NOT SUPPOSED TO PEEK!  The only thing you should be doing is monitoring the temperature of the smoker.  I have an external temperature gauge that allows me to monitor the heat in the smoker.  When I see the temperature above 225, I close the vents at the bottom of the smoker..  When I see the temperature below 200, I open the vents part way.  And so it goes for four hours.  Experience will provide you with appropriate insight as to when and how much to open the vents.  This is both science and art.  The science part is dictated when you incorporate factors such as external wind, external temperature, amount of charcoals being used, etc..  The art part is dictated when you decided how much fruit wood to use, how much dry rub to apply, etc..

For this particular BBQ, I kept the temperature under 225 the entire four hours.  When I pulled the rack out of the smoker, here is what they looked like:


Not sure if you can see it or not, but upon slicing a rib off the rack, you can see the reddish smoke ring on the outside of the meat.  This BBQ was a total success and wait for it - AWESOMELY DELICIOUS!

I would have had a picture of me eating one of the ribs but I was alone for this BBQ and could not get my dogs to snap the picture.  Talk about ungrateful mutt's.  They were perfectly willing to snack on the ribs but refused to take my picture.  The Nerve!!

There you have it - perfectly BBQ'd pork baby back ribs.  Happy Eating!!