This week's installment of Smokin' Sunday actually fell on Saturday. Steven and I were both slated to volunteer at church on Sunday which means Steven will get home late so we elected to move our practice round for the ribs we plan to make for our Super Bowl get-together to Saturday so that we would have enough time to actually cook them.
We decided a few weeks ago when we started to think about having our annual Super Bowl Get-Together (I hesitate to call it a "party" because it's super low key) that we wanted to smoke something. We had not yet tried ribs so we thought this would be the best opportunity. However, anyone that knows us, knows that we do not just wing things so we wanted to practice the ribs prior to subjecting our friends to them.
We elected to use pork ribs. Bonus: They were on sale at Winn Dixie last weekend so we went ahead and bought two. I'm now wondering if I should have picked up one more so we will think about that in the coming weeks prior to our get-together.
As usual, we did a bit of research before starting and learned how to best trim the ribs and found a rub that we liked (which is listed at the end of this post for anyone that is curious).
We started by trimming the ribs and then coating them in regular yellow mustard. We learned with the pork before this that you can use it as a sticking agent to keep your rub on but it doesn't leave any sort of taste. We coated one side with mustard and the rub then let it sit for about 10 minutes before flipping it as this was recommended so that your rub would soak into the mustard and meat itself and you wouldn't lose too much when you flip it. Then we did the same on the top side and let it sit. We realized pretty quickly that we would need to cut the ribs in half as the entire rack did not fit as a whole in the smoker. It wasn't a huge deal though and we just ended up with two pieces.
Downfall to smoking this weekend... it was COLD outside. That means that everything took a bit longer because the smoker has to heat to where we want it, then maintain that temp. Anytime it was opened, we lost a bit of heat and had to wait for it to heat back up.
We smoked the ribs with hickory chips on 230 degrees. Side note: We initially started smoking with mesquite chips but have found that the hickory is way better. Just a note for anyone smoking, try different chips. You may prefer one over another. We started with the ribs directly in the smoker for approximately 2 hours.
Then, we removed them and wrapped them tightly in tin foil for another 2 hours.
When we removed them after that step, we immediately noticed how tender they were. They were so tender that the bone on the end of the ribs just fell out as we were trying to get them back into the smoker. No harm no foul though. We just pulled it out and kept going.
After that, we put them back in unwrapped to set the bark. When we removed them, they looked (and smelled) awesome.
We then wrapped them in tinfoil once again (though using tinfoil wasn't necessarily mentioned in everything we read) and just let them sit for a while before eating.
They were awesome! They just fell off the bones. Perfection. The only issue we had was that we used far too much rub. Next time, we are going to use a very thin amount. It was so much that I ended up scraping most of it off. Despite that, they were still SO good!
Here's to another awesome meal with the help of the smoker.
Here is the rib rub for anyone interested:
Memphis Style Rib Rub
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup garlic powder
1/4 cup chili powder (it recommended "mild" but we used what we had in our cabinet and did not
specify)
3 tbsp black pepper
3 tbsp salt
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp celery seed (we omitted this because I thought I had it, but didn't)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp cumin
2 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp allspice
We typically make a ton of rub and then just store it in containers for next time we want to use it. We always put a label on the lid of the container detailing what kind of rub it is and list each ingredient in case we want to replicate it. This just makes it easier to remember what is what and we don't have to worry about misplacing recipes. We have quite the collection of rubs going. We find that using Chinese food soup plastic containers is a great way to store these. They are easy to stack and we have different sizes so we can store a lot of rub at once or a little. Plus, the lids fit each size container so we can mix and match them as we make more or less rub. The only exception to this (so far) is our turkey rub. That one used oil in it too, so we didn't retain any left overs of that one. These are all dry rubs that we keep mixed and ready to go.
We decided a few weeks ago when we started to think about having our annual Super Bowl Get-Together (I hesitate to call it a "party" because it's super low key) that we wanted to smoke something. We had not yet tried ribs so we thought this would be the best opportunity. However, anyone that knows us, knows that we do not just wing things so we wanted to practice the ribs prior to subjecting our friends to them.
We elected to use pork ribs. Bonus: They were on sale at Winn Dixie last weekend so we went ahead and bought two. I'm now wondering if I should have picked up one more so we will think about that in the coming weeks prior to our get-together.
As usual, we did a bit of research before starting and learned how to best trim the ribs and found a rub that we liked (which is listed at the end of this post for anyone that is curious).
We started by trimming the ribs and then coating them in regular yellow mustard. We learned with the pork before this that you can use it as a sticking agent to keep your rub on but it doesn't leave any sort of taste. We coated one side with mustard and the rub then let it sit for about 10 minutes before flipping it as this was recommended so that your rub would soak into the mustard and meat itself and you wouldn't lose too much when you flip it. Then we did the same on the top side and let it sit. We realized pretty quickly that we would need to cut the ribs in half as the entire rack did not fit as a whole in the smoker. It wasn't a huge deal though and we just ended up with two pieces.
Downfall to smoking this weekend... it was COLD outside. That means that everything took a bit longer because the smoker has to heat to where we want it, then maintain that temp. Anytime it was opened, we lost a bit of heat and had to wait for it to heat back up.
We smoked the ribs with hickory chips on 230 degrees. Side note: We initially started smoking with mesquite chips but have found that the hickory is way better. Just a note for anyone smoking, try different chips. You may prefer one over another. We started with the ribs directly in the smoker for approximately 2 hours.
Then, we removed them and wrapped them tightly in tin foil for another 2 hours.
When we removed them after that step, we immediately noticed how tender they were. They were so tender that the bone on the end of the ribs just fell out as we were trying to get them back into the smoker. No harm no foul though. We just pulled it out and kept going.
After that, we put them back in unwrapped to set the bark. When we removed them, they looked (and smelled) awesome.
We then wrapped them in tinfoil once again (though using tinfoil wasn't necessarily mentioned in everything we read) and just let them sit for a while before eating.
They were awesome! They just fell off the bones. Perfection. The only issue we had was that we used far too much rub. Next time, we are going to use a very thin amount. It was so much that I ended up scraping most of it off. Despite that, they were still SO good!
Here's to another awesome meal with the help of the smoker.
Here is the rib rub for anyone interested:
Memphis Style Rib Rub
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup garlic powder
1/4 cup chili powder (it recommended "mild" but we used what we had in our cabinet and did not
specify)
3 tbsp black pepper
3 tbsp salt
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp celery seed (we omitted this because I thought I had it, but didn't)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp cumin
2 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp allspice
We typically make a ton of rub and then just store it in containers for next time we want to use it. We always put a label on the lid of the container detailing what kind of rub it is and list each ingredient in case we want to replicate it. This just makes it easier to remember what is what and we don't have to worry about misplacing recipes. We have quite the collection of rubs going. We find that using Chinese food soup plastic containers is a great way to store these. They are easy to stack and we have different sizes so we can store a lot of rub at once or a little. Plus, the lids fit each size container so we can mix and match them as we make more or less rub. The only exception to this (so far) is our turkey rub. That one used oil in it too, so we didn't retain any left overs of that one. These are all dry rubs that we keep mixed and ready to go.
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