A Lazy Man's Ribs

My wife had been on the road for 10 days straight and I knew she was looking forward to just coming home and relaxing on the weekend, watching her Steelers play football followed by the Emmy Awards on Sunday.  So, I decided to treat her to a bit of a fun BBQ day to help her relax and really enjoy herself.  Having never tried ribs yet on the Big Green Egg, I thought it was the perfect time to do so. 

Today was an absolutely beautiful early fall day not a cloud in the sky and no wind. The temperature was still comfortable enough, but you could tell it’s started to get cold as the hornets are starting to get lethargic just sitting on the side of the house while the first flock of geese head south for the season. This is good because when I was bbq'ing last night, I saw flocks of geese flying west...and then north as well, then more going west again (they seemed very confused).  

Not exactly a 'V formation', but they were headed south

Ok, so now that I've set the stage, I fired up the grill with some maple wood charcoal and started to let the temperature slowly rise to 225 Fahrenheit while I started prepping the ribs.  The ribs in question for today’s bbq goodness are pork back ribs.  Kelly actually picked them up yesterday when she was out and thankfully asked the good folks at The Butchery if they didn’t mind removing the membrane before they packaged them up.  Lazy Tip #1, ask the butcher to remove the membrane for you.

So, we’ve got our grill warming up, our ribs are sitting on the counter and it’s now time to prepare them with a little rub.  Now, here’s Lazy Tip #2: if you aren’t in the mood, and are lazy, you can always buy a pre-made rub. So far all my other rubs have been home prepared (often with Kelly's efforts, actually - always with Kelly's efforts), but I chose to go for a motorcycle ride yesterday instead of looking up a rub recipe and going out getting the necessary spices.  So for today’s ribs, I used Steve Raichlen’s Lone Star Barbeque Rub.  As always, I prepped the meat using a thin layer of mustard to act as a binding agent for the rub to stick to the meat.  I rubbed the ribs and let them sit for a bit while I finished setting up the grill for indirect cooking.  

I had to cut the 2 strips up to fit them onto the rack

I used the place setter and filled the drip pan with some apple juice and boiling water. Then, just before I put the ribs on, I added a bunch of apple wood chips that I’d been soaking for an hour or so. This created a bit of a smokefest just as the ribs went on - smelled outstanding in the crisp air (ahhh nature).

Now, for today’s session, I decided to follow the 3 - 2 - 1 method of rib cookery.  The 3 means 3 hours of slow cooking at 225, the 2 refers to the following 2 hours of foil wrapped cooking with some apple juice in there to keep them steaming and moist (Lazy Tip #3: what to do with the left-over cooked apple juice from the foil in step 2, drain it into the drip pan that’s already got apple juice and water steaming, easy clean up and adds flavor). And finally, the 1 refers to the final hour where you take them out of the foil, back on the grill naked and you can start basting them with BBQ sauce if you like. Some may say that using foil on step 2 is cheating or lazy, but that was the theme of the day. Plus - if it tastes good, who cares?

So let’s fast forward to the final hour as that’s when things get interesting. I decided to do 3 options:

Option 1: Basted with Steve Raichlen’s Smokey Apple Sauce

Option 2: Basted with Rufus Teague’s ‘Touch o’ Heat’ Sauce

Option 3: Left Plain (for dipping if necessary)

Final Plate: Option 1 and 2 with Kelly's Mac N' Cheese

I really like both option 1 and 2 and actually, I think I liked the heat in Rufus Teague's sauce the best. The plain ribs were still great and we'll just dip them or possibly cut them up and use the meat in fajitas or something else.  I'll bring some into work tomorrow for Rob (aka Capt. Diabetes who you might remember from earlier such posts as 'Goosebump Inducing Pulled Pork'). The final result in terms of the meat itself was pretty much 'fall off the bone' which obviously was the goal. So I certainly recommend the 3 - 2 - 1 method.

Finally, one of our cats game me the final seal of approval by stealing one of the rib bone remnants off of Kelly's plate and attempted to make a getaway.  

Oh - by the way, the Steelers beat the Seahawks in a shut out so I think even if the ribs came out horrible, Kelly would have been pleased!

From Pasture to Plate: The Journey of a Beef Brisket

Friday of the Labour Day long weekend and all I could think about was finishing work and heading to The Butchery, my local purveyor of fine tasty meats!  I’d already decided on this long weekend, I was going to smoke a beef brisket. I spoke with one of the Marks at The Butchery who cut me a 8.5lb brisket himself.  Watching him skilfully cut the brisket for me was like watching a surgeon on one of the 857 hospital TV shows, he made it look so easy.

We picked up the ingredients we needed at the grocery store and headed home.  I decided to follow a recipe I found on the Big Green Egg site here:  http://www.biggreenegg.com/brisket.html 

My sous-chef (Kelly) dutifully mixed the ingredients together while I prepared supper (Turkey Burgers in case you were curious).  Once the rub was mixed, I applied it liberally to all parts of the meat and wrapped it in foil, letting the rub and the meat get acquainted with each other for the next couple hours.

While our meat is resting, let’s have a look at the meat cut breakdown of the cow so we understand where brisket comes from.  As you can see from our image below, the brisket is the cut of meat from the breast on the cow and it’s the muscle that supports the cow’s head.

image courtesy of JoeSmack

As someone with a giant head myself (my motorcycle helmet is a XXL), I’m aware at how strong the supporting muscles must be to support giant heads.  My neck size on dress shirts for instance is 18.5”.  Anyway, the point is it’s a very strong muscular meat so the tissue needs to be broken down over low and slow heat, with moisture, otherwise you end up with a very tough meat.

Ok, so back to the brisket…when we last left our meat, it was wrapped in foil and resting comfortably absorbing the rub.  Ok, so I set up the grill with an indirect heat setting, lots of charcoal and some soaked maple wood chips to add a bit of a additional smoke.  A pan filled with boiling water under the grill itself was also added to ensure moisture in the meat.  I put the meat on at 250 degrees Fahrenheit and after I was confident the temperature was steady, went to bed.

Early the next morning, I awoke not unlike a child at Christmas, so excited to run down and check on my meat.  The beef was nestled all snug in the egg, while visions of brisket danced in my head.  When out on the deck there wafted such a scent, my neighbour sprang from his deck chair to see what was the cooking.  Why it’s brisket I said, and…I can’t think of anymore rhymes to continue this thread. ;)

Anyway, when the internal temp hit 150 degrees Fahrenheit, I lowered the temp to 225.  After the brisket had been smoking for about 16 hours or so, it had reached an internal temp of just under 185 and I pulled the brisket off.  

I wrapped it in foil and added about half a cup of warm beef broth and placed it in a cooler for a couple hours to rest, it had a long night after all.  

Special note for pet lovers...I had to include a picture of my cats trying to figure out how to get into the cooler to get to the brisket.

That evening, Kelly and I (along with several neighbours on our street) enjoyed some beef brisket.  I’m rather biased since I cooked it, but it was really very good.  The rub and the smoke really came through in the flavour and I found that I ate so much by hand while cutting it up in slices that I was a bit full by the time it came for us to eat supper ourselves…hehe.  

Bottom line; I’d recommend this recipe to anyone who wants to try brisket.  It took a while but the results were well worth it, and we have lots of leftovers to enjoy over the rest of the week!  I’m planning Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches, fajitas and other sandwiches for starters.  And THAT my friends, is part of the reason why I cook these giant slabs of meat, for the leftovers!