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!