smoking first time smoker-

[salsalady]

We lit up the bbq grill again for another round of smoked ribs. We used the same spice mix and process, so I decided to just continue this thread with the addition of the St Louis cut ribs. The brown sugar was rock hard, so I melted it with a little hot water then added the spices to the melted brown sugar water. I guess that would make it a wet rub, but it worked just fine on the smoke-grill.

Here's the pics!

Hey Look! I was able to SOS pad the thermometer enough to at least read the temp!

I followed the previous advice and kept the smoke going for about 2 hours. Didn't quite make it to the full 6 hours of cooking, and I think it would have been just a tad bit tenderer if we'd left it on the full time. Still really good! and definitely much more meat to eat with the St Louis cut! We still polished it off in one sitting, but at least it was most of the meal, instead of just the appetizer that the short ribs were.

Thanks for all the hints and suggestions. Good Stuff!

 

[The Hot Pepper]

There's a reason you said there's lots of meat here. St. Louis is how they are trimmed. These were not trimmed, this is just a big hunk of pork .

Steps to a STL cut:

1. Remove the skirt meat from the bone side. It's easy to identify, it's a flap.
2. Square them off by removing the rib tips (down that white line near "Pork Spareribs" on the package). You can see in that last picture, you have ribs on the right, and tips on the left. That's a lot of extra meat that does not make for a good rib.
3. Remove the white membrane from the bone side.

That's why you did not get nice squared ribs. And usually you would cut into individual ribs for serving. Good first try. Next time trim them up, and also cut into ribs when done, and you will have perfect ribs, instead of extra meat attached, and guests pulling meat off the bone trying to separate them themselves. Hope this helps.

BBQ is experimenting, but the failures usually taste good too so keep at it.

 

[LUCKYDOG]

Looks great - THP is right thats the whole spare - nothing wrong with that it is a big ol' hunk of goodness - The flaps that you cut off are the Qer's samples Be sure to remove the membrane off the back - and when you wrap in the foil add some of your mop in as well -- Looks tasty

 

[salsalady]

thanks guys.

I did cut off the chine-thing and added mop to the foil. Each person cut their own section apart, we weren't quite gnawing on the slab caveman style, but it was close.

OK, next time, trim it up and leave the bigger slab on for the full time.

Yee-haw! An excuse to do it again!

 

[richoso12]

Congrats on a good smoke, nice pull back on the bones. Thanks for sharing the great looking Q. It's all good my friend.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Yee-haw! An excuse to do it again!

Hehe. Yeah, that's the spirit. Trial and error. It's fun to experiment too. Different woods, thinking out of the box with ingredients, cuts, whatever. Like Rich says, it's all good.