Smoking Pork Ribs
I am going to start a blog series on my adventures in smoking. This week, pork ribs are on the menu.
For my past smoking experiences, I have been using an electric smoker. I felt like I was cheating. I would set the smoker and forget about it. Our gas grill of seven years finally met its grave. My wife and I replaced it with a 3 in 1 grill combo. It has a propane side and a charcoal side. The charcoal side also has an offset smoker box attached it. I was not ready to get a standalone smoker. I was not sure how often I would use. I know we would cook with charcoal quite often. I have never smoked with wood before so this could end up being a challenge.
I wanted to start with something with a shorter cook time. We bought some pork spareribs. We have done ribs before in the electric smoker.
The rub I used contained salt, pepper, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and brown sugar.
Controlling the heat is not very easy. I should have started the fire before I put the ribs on. The temperature was pretty high in the beginning. After that, the fire was a lot easier to manage. You live and learn. The type of wood I used was oak. I sprayed apple juice on the ribs very so often to prevent it from drying out. After a couple of hours, I wrapped up the ribs in foil and added some barbecue sauce.
The ribs ended up turning out okay. They were falling off the bone. They were tender and had nice smoke to it. I used way too much brown sugar. Some of the meat candied. Not a good thing. I also used more barbecue sauce than I should have. The high heat in the beginning charred some of the ribs. If it did not get so hot in the beginning, the time it spent in the smoker would have probably been just right. I made a ton of rookie mistakes. I feel embarassed. There is always next time. There is a lot of trial and error in barbecue. I think smoking a pork butt is next. It is a more forgiving meat.
Amber did make some homemade potato salad. It was really good. It is very comparable to the one you find at The Salt Lick. I definitely was impressed with her "creation."
Until next time, happy smoking...
For my past smoking experiences, I have been using an electric smoker. I felt like I was cheating. I would set the smoker and forget about it. Our gas grill of seven years finally met its grave. My wife and I replaced it with a 3 in 1 grill combo. It has a propane side and a charcoal side. The charcoal side also has an offset smoker box attached it. I was not ready to get a standalone smoker. I was not sure how often I would use. I know we would cook with charcoal quite often. I have never smoked with wood before so this could end up being a challenge.
I wanted to start with something with a shorter cook time. We bought some pork spareribs. We have done ribs before in the electric smoker.
The rub I used contained salt, pepper, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and brown sugar.
Controlling the heat is not very easy. I should have started the fire before I put the ribs on. The temperature was pretty high in the beginning. After that, the fire was a lot easier to manage. You live and learn. The type of wood I used was oak. I sprayed apple juice on the ribs very so often to prevent it from drying out. After a couple of hours, I wrapped up the ribs in foil and added some barbecue sauce.
The ribs ended up turning out okay. They were falling off the bone. They were tender and had nice smoke to it. I used way too much brown sugar. Some of the meat candied. Not a good thing. I also used more barbecue sauce than I should have. The high heat in the beginning charred some of the ribs. If it did not get so hot in the beginning, the time it spent in the smoker would have probably been just right. I made a ton of rookie mistakes. I feel embarassed. There is always next time. There is a lot of trial and error in barbecue. I think smoking a pork butt is next. It is a more forgiving meat.
Amber did make some homemade potato salad. It was really good. It is very comparable to the one you find at The Salt Lick. I definitely was impressed with her "creation."
Until next time, happy smoking...
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