We'd already made pork babyback ribs, which are thinner and tend to have less overall meat on the bones. Spare ribs, on the other hand, are quite thick and are a more tender cut of meat. For this first crack at spare ribs we're using store-bought rubs, as at this point we hadn't started making our own rubs yet. We mixed together a smoky Texas style rub with "Butt Rub," a barbecue seasoning again given to us by our fantastic friend Cristal, who is always bringing us interesting cooking ingredients when she comes home from trips.
The full rack of ribs is pretty big, and here you can see the whole thing out of the package as I'm washing it off and getting ready to rub it down with seasonings.
The two seasonings are mixed together in a bowl and then rubbed directly onto both sides of the rack, which is on a sheet of plastic wrap. Not only does this keep the table clean, but we'll also tightly wrap the ribs and briefly store them in the fridge prior to cooking so the rub has enough time to flavor the meat.
As with our other rib experiments, we combine both a rub and an injection for maximum flavor potential. This time around we're going with a fun combination of apple juice, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, and a spicy Kansas style barbecue sauce, as this particular grilling experience was before we started making our own barbecue sauces. You can check out our first attempt at making a homemade version with smoky raspberry BBQ sauce, and soon we'll be posting up entries detailing how we've made a spicy sauce and a root beer barbecue sauce.
Once all the ingredients are mixed together, the concoction is injected directly into the meat with the giant needle you see below.
Here's the rack of spare ribs after being completely rubbed down and injected. You can see some of the injection sauce ends up seeping upward, but this just further flavors the top layer of the meat.
Because of how large a rack of spareribs is and how long it will take to properly grill, we don't want to use any direct heat, which will just end up over-cooking the outer layer and make the meat tough. To properly slow cook the spare ribs, we heat up the coals until they are white hot and then slide them apart onto two opposite sides of the grill.
The ribs go over the empty stretch in the middle so the heat from the coals cooks the meat, but there's not any direct heat underneath the ribs. The full cooking process ended up taking a little over three hours, which gave us plenty of time to enjoy being outside in the warm weather with a pack of beer. Of course the ribs are flipped around, over, and then around again at different points during the grilling process so that all sides receive even cooking. In addition to the injection, we also spritzed the ribs with apple juice several times throughout the cooking process to give it a shiny look for a better presentation and keep it moist.
Our earlier grilling adventure with babyback ribs ended up with just a tad more char than we wanted, so with the spare ribs we laid down a sheet of tin foil underneath the meat for the last hour and a half of cooking, resulting in these amazingly moist and tender ribs with just a hint of a char ring around the outer edge.
However good you think these look, I guarantee you the in-person experience was far better, as the smell just can't be properly described.
This is my plate for dinner that evening, with both an end piece and a middle rib. The tender meat pulled away easily and had an amazing combination of smoky and sweet flavors with just a hint of the spicy. With this amount of flavor preparation, and meat this tender, there isn't any need for barbecue sauce.
Here's another look at my plate with a focus on the sides, which included our grilling standard of the potato packet with yellow pepper, red pepper, onion, liquid smoke, and several spices. I've also got a hefty side salad with a host of chopped veggies, some shredded cheddar, and thousand island, my personal favorite dressing. On a related note, I also recently made my own thousand island dressing, which will be covered on an upcoming blog.
To see more of what we've been cooking up on the barbecue, check out our grilled pork and turkey burgers. Coming up we've got even more coverage on grilling season '12, as well as a look at how to make stellar potato salad with some surprising ingredients, making homemade sauces and rubs, and another look at hearty breakfast meals. See you again soon, and be sure to let us know if you've made any fantastic meals lately!
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