Judd smokes some ribs
Once again, Judd’s pimped-out Weber grill delivers some delicious BBQ. This time, he smoked some pork ribs and whipped up a tasty Kansas City-style sauce:
He packed them less densely than last time, when we learned that too many ribs plus too little room for air to circulate equals raw pork, even after six to eight hours over hickory chips. This time, they came out nice and flavorful, though they could have been a bit more tender. These certainly weren’t tough, but the meat wasn’t falling off the bone, either.
Want to know whether your ribs were smoked, as they should be, or boiled, as some cooks do to save time at the expense of flavor? Look for the telltale pink edging along the outside of the meat. Smoking creates it; boiling doesn’t. You can see it on Judd’s ribs here:
Want to know more about smoking meat? Check out this Lexington Collection guide; it focuses on pork shoulders rather than ribs, but the principles are the same. If you’ve got a grill, you can smoke meat at home with some hickory chips and a little patience (and maybe some inexpensive grill modifications like Judd’s). The hardcore among you might consider commercial or homegrown dedicated smoking devices, but those aren’t necessary unless you’re serving a large crowd. You can smoke some delicious pig without a lot of investment. In summary:
Comments (1)
I have to agree with Andrew – the ribs looked better than they tasted. Not my best effort, but it was nice to be smoking again.
Thankfully I know what happened. I think, believe it or not, that the heat was too low. As a result, the meat did not get to move past that cooked point to the tender falling apart point. The way I usually smoke is to put a dish of water in the middle of the grill and then put a pile of coals on either side and feed woodchips to both. This time one side of coals didn’t light at the beginning for whatever reason. That has never been a problem before. But the meat was already on so I decided to stick with one side only and flip the ribs every so often for even cooking. But with only one side I had trouble keeping the heat and the smoke up, so that explains that.
Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to try again. Next time I won’t settle for less than the spare ribs that I love so very much.