How to Smoke Spare Ribs...

Smoked Spare Ribs

For really good ribs, it is best to make some good prior planning. It is always best prepare your ribs the evening before you are going to cook them. Letting your rub set in overnight makes a big difference in the taste. Always remember never be shy with the rub. You can make your own rub or buy a good pork rub from the grocery store.

Some things you will need

• Pork Spare Ribs 5 to 7 pounds
• Dry Pork Rub (generally any rub from the grocery store works fine)
• Wood for smoking ( oak or hickory)
• Olive oil
• Honey
• Brown sugar
• Apple cider vinegar

This is a great recipe that I have used for years and is easy to do. This recipe is for about 5 lbs. of spare ribs. You can expect your cook time for smoking ribs to be about 6 hours. A larger rack will still take about the same time.

With ribs you also don’t really “have” to have a traditional smoker although they work the best. You can do this on a normal grill just make sure you heat source and wood is on one side and the ribs are as far from that source as possible on the other side.

Buying Your Ribs

When finding your ribs at the grocery store try to get ribs that have never been frozen. This may be hard to do in some places but fresh never frozen ribs will turn out much more tender than ribs that have been frozen. If your ribs have been frozen don’t worry, it won’t make a huge difference and will turn out just fine following this recipe.

Prepping or Trimming your Ribs for the Smoker

Here is where a lot of people tend to disagree with prepping. There is a membrane on the underside of the ribs that most folks will tell you that needs to be removed and I agree. However, this step is completely up to you but I think it makes a difference in the way they will taste. If you buy St. Louis trimmed ribs then it most likely this membrane has already been removed. It can be a little tricky to remove your first time so below is a video of how to remove the membrane from spare ribs.

One other thing about trimming meat this will go across the board and anything that I post on this blog. Leave ALL the fat on. Fat is flavor and a natural way of keeping your meat juicy and tender.

Seasoning your Ribs

Here is what you want to do. Rub down your ribs with a rib rub the night before and put them back into the fridge. Take them out 1 hour before you put them on the smoker and apply a light layer of brown sugar. This layer of brown sugar will caramelize and make a glaze over the ribs and this need to happen before they go on the smoker. The one hour waiting on the smoker allows the ribs to get close to room temperature which is important for most meat before being smoked and makes more tender meat.

Smoking the Ribs

As far as wood goes, a good mix of white oak and hickory make for a good flavor for ribs. No mesquite, it is too strong and will over power your ribs. Actually, I really don’t recommend mesquite for anything, it has a very strong smoke flavor and it is easy to overdo it.

The biggest thing to remember is make sure your smoker stays around 220 to 225. This is very important and will insure your ribs turn out nice a tender. Also higher temperatures will burn the brown sugar and that will affect the flavor of the ribs.

Place the ribs right on the grates bone side up. Smoke the ribs for about 6 hours and actually may take a little less time.

The rule of thumb is 1 hour per pound but I have found that a 7 lbs rack of ribs will cook in about the same time as a 5 lbs. rack give or take 15 minutes. Make sure you keep your eye on your cook temperatures and I can’t stress that enough.

Apply a mop sauce about every hour to your ribs. More often won’t hurt but just don’t overdo it.

Basic Mop Sauce Recipe

Mix about 2/3 cup of apple cider vinegar and a third cup of olive oil and apply with a brush on both sides. You can play around with it a bit and add some spices to the mop sauce as well.

During the last 30 minutes of cooking flip the ribs over so that the bone side is down and apply a finishing sauce. You can mix about ¼ cup honey and ¼ olive oil and apply to the top of the ribs. This will make a nice glaze and give your ribs some really great flavor.