How To Cook Pork Ribs On The Grill
You start by rubbing racks of pork baby back ribs with an aromatic mix of paprika, chile powder, cumin, coriander, cayenne, salt, pepper and brown sugar. The ribs are then wrapped in foil and cooked covered on the grill over direct medium heat for 1 hour. I personally prefer using a charcoal grill, but you could easily make these on a gas grill. The key is to maintain a temperature of 350°F 400°F within the covered grill.
The ribs are then unwrapped and finished on the grill with the addition of hickory wood chips and store bought barbecue sauce. You baste and turn the ribs a few times over 10 12 minutes, resulting in saucy, smoky, charred ribs. So. Yum.
Best Dry Rub For Ribs
- Packed brown sugar
- Salt preferably Himalayan sea salt
- Cumin
- Chili powder
- Mustard powder
When you dry rub baby back ribs, our Rib Rub Recipe is therub to use. Its part of what makes this the best baby back ribs recipe! You can use the dry rub of your choice, but we highly recommend giving this recipe a try.
How To Apply Bbq Sauce
When the ribs are approaching done, apply your BBQ sauce. Be careful here: as tempting as it might be to thickly paste on the sauce, I strongly recommend spreading it in thin layers. Doing this will give us the satisfying and sticky surface of our ribs.
If we apply it to thickly then it wont have the chance to dry, giving us a disgusting wet coating.
Layer carefully by applying a thin layer on one side, before turning over and doing the other side. Once both sides are coated, close the lid on your grill and leave for 5 minutes before repeating the process again. Repeat 4-5 times in total. Once done, remove from heat and put to one side.
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How To Charcoal Grill Ribs
Now that our grill is ready, its time to get this rib cook-off going! Place the racks on the grate of the grill, ensuring that theyre placed on the half of the grate without charcoal underneath it, next to the water pan. Place them with the rib side of the rack facing down.
Aim to cook for 3-4 hours for baby back ribs, or 4-5 hours for spare ribs.
After one hour check on the ribs, making sure that the charcoals are burning nicely and keeping the grill hot. Also check that theres enough water in the pan to maintain a healthy supply of steam.
Add a few more wood chunks to the coals and turn the ribs over to help give you a more even cook.
Check out our guide to smoking ribs on a gas grill
Tenderize Pork Ribs Before Grilling
You should remove the coating on the bottom of the pork ribs before cooking to make the pork ribs more delicate and flavorful. Its a significant stage, and its easy to complete! Peel up the edges of the small hole from the food using a blade, then lift the material completely with your fingertips. If necessary, You can use a towel to help you gain a solid handle.
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Treat The Meat To A Spice Rub
Taste of Home
Trust us: You want to add the spice rub. Like making the marinade, its simple to prep, just tossing some ingredients together in a bowl. Here, we use the remaining ½ cup sugar, plus salt and seasonings.
Take the ribs out of the fridge. Drain and discard the marinade from the 13×9. Pat the ribs dry . Rub the spice mixture over all sides of the ribs, patting with your fingertips to encourage it to adhere.
Test Kitchen Tip: When it comes to ribs, some people only use a marinade. Some people only use spice rub. We like to do both! Marinading adds layers of flavor that penetrate deep into the meat, while the spice rub adds flavor to the surface of the meat. When the grill sears the ribs, the spicy, crackling exterior of the meat makes a delicious contrast to the tender, succulent meat inside.
How Long To Grill Ribs
Place the ribs bone side down over the direct heat and close the lid. Set your timer for 35-45 minutes.
Once the 45 minutes is up, flip the ribs so that the meat side is down. Cook them meat side down for 15 minutes.
Your total cook time is about 60 minutes.
As I said, it doesnt matter what kind of ribs you have. Baby back, St. Louis style, they all cook the same when you do it this way! Simply maintain that 350 degrees and youre good to go!
After 45 minutes to 1 hour of grilling, your ribs should be right around 203 degrees F. internal temperature. Ideally, theyll get to 205 degrees F. but 203 is perfectly acceptable!
After the 60 minutes is up, sauce the ribs again and crank the heat to high .
Char up the BBQ sauce on each side for a few minutes and double-check your temperature.
Thats how to BBQ ribs on the grill, the right way!
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How To Guide: Pork Ribs
Pork rib is an economical cut of meat that, if prepared correctly, can be utterly delicious. The key to nailing pork ribs is in the marinade and cooking process, but here we offer all the information you need. Well have you revelling over ribs in no time!
How to buy pork ribs
The first thing to note is that there are 2 main types of pork rib spare ribs and baby back. Spare ribs are cut from the belly section, whereas baby backs are cut from the loin.
Learn more about pork rib cuts with our dedicated guide.
Individual raw pork spare ribs
Raw pork spare ribs
Fat equals flavour when it comes to ribs, so look for a decent amount of marbling through the meat that should exhibit a pinkish-red colour. Stay away from meat that is pale or has dark blemishes on the fat. Dont be put off by the large rack of bones that accompanies the meat. This accounts for about half the weight and, once cooked properly, will fall away from the meat easily.
How to store pork ribs
When it comes to how to store your pork ribs, its very simple. Store raw pork at 5°c or below in the fridge and up to 4-6 months in the freezer at -18°C. When youre ready to use them, defrost and thaw for 24 hours towards the bottom of the fridge before preparing.
How to prepare your pork ribs
Also, be sure to let the ribs reach room temperature before cooking, ideally about 30 minutes before cooking will ensure even cooking results.
How to cook your pork ribs
Discover more
Can We Wrap Pork Ribs In Foil When Grilling
Because beef pork chops have more fat and softness than short pork ribs, they should be cooked open. Must prepare Ham ribcage with water, and must be wrapped throughout grilling to retain the wetness.
Wrap package every whole rack in its box utilizing eight 18-by-24-inch pieces of high aluminum foil. Set the pork ribs on the grills above straight medium-high warmth for 60 minutes, with the door closed, flipping the packs over regularly for uniform grilling, and being careful not to puncture the aluminum.
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Hot And Fast Ribs Recipe
Here are the steps I used to cook these ribs on my BBQ42 Charcoal Grill. Im cooking 6 racks of baby back ribs. They should take a total of 2 to 2-1/2 hours to cook.
- Season the ribs with Meadow Creek Black Pepper Brisket Rub or your favorite rib seasoning.
- Fire the grill with 20 pounds of charcoal briquettes . Mound the charcoal in the center and light half of the coals with a propane torch. Use a garden hoe or shovel to mix the coals and spread them evenly. Toss in several chunks of smoking wood.
- Set the flat grate in place on the grill.
- Close the lid and top vents and adjust the bottom vents to 1/2 open. After 15 minutes, check the temperature and adjust the bottom vents as needed to stabilize the temperature at roughly 275 degrees F.
- Arrange the ribs on the grate meat side up and immediately close the lid. You dont want to give the fire too much air. Check on them every 15-20 minutes to make sure the bottom sides are not charring too much.
- After 1 hour, flip them to meat side down to keep them from burning on the bottom before they are done. Close the lid and only open it to check them every 10-15 minutes to make sure they are not burning on the meat side.
- Once they have the color you are looking for on the meat side, flip them back to meat side up, glaze the tops, and close the lid.
- Remove them from the grill when they are tender or reach 200 degrees F between the bones. Slice and serve.
What About the Smoke Flavor?
Charcoal mixed and spread evenly in the pan.
Prep Your Cooker For Smoking
If youre utilizing a pot barbecue, put it up to use an indirect manner, such as the snakes waysetup for a long burn for outdoor smoking. Kingsford Extended Burner is an excellent fuel with either kind of burner with its extended fire period and minimal dust composition.
It is soaking a couple of bunches of Kingsford® Sawdust for almost thirty min before putting on topping off the charcoal either with technique. Underneath the steak, put a slotted spoon full of water or apple cider. When the liquid drains, it will help regulate the barbecue heat and bring humidity to the atmosphere.
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How Low Should You Go
Food science god Harold McGee is an advocate of the long, slow cooking of ribs, baking them for 68 hours at an oven temperature of between 95 and 80C “the lower the meat’s temperature, the less moisture it loses,” he says in his Curious Cook column in the New York Times, “but the longer its connective tissue takes to dissolve, too”. Ribs cooked at 60C will thus be very juicy, but, on the flip side, will take “several days” to become tender so his method is a compromise between texture and time.
Sadly my oven won’t go low enough to give his recipe a try, but Jamie Oliver’s “truly incredible” 5-star pork ribs, from Jamie’s America, adopt a similar, if slightly faster approach, by cooking the ribs for 4¼ hours at 135C. As a contrast, I follow them up with Nigella’s Finger Lickin’ Ribs, from her book Feast, a deliberately quick recipe designed, apparently, for eating “oozy and sticky” in bed, which cooks at 200C for an hour. Jamie’s ribs are certainly far more succulent, but Nigella’s nicely caramelised, slightly crisp top is undeniably seductive.
Should I Wrap My Ribs In Foil When Grilling
Wrapping the meat in foil will limit the amount of smoke on the surface of the meat thus yielding a better color and flavor on the final product. It also adds moisture and speeds up cooking time. Wrapping should be done about half way through the cooking process or when internal meat temp is 150-160 degrees.
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Begin Cooking The Ribs
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Set the rib rack on the cooking grate over the drip pan, with the bone sides of the ribs facing the coals. Let the ribs smoke for 45 minutes. Check every 10 minutes or so, and if the temperature rises above 325ºF, close the top vents halfway otherwise, leave the vents completely open. If the temperature drops below 250ºF, add 5 to 10 unlit briquettes to the fire. After the ribs have cooked for 45 minutes, drain the remaining wood chips and gently spread them over the coals . Close the lid. Let the ribs smoke 15 minutes more for baby backs, 1 hour 15 minutes more for spareribs. During this initial cooking, prepare the mop and sauce.
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Cooking Our Smoked Spare Ribs
Every half hour to hour we sprayed it with apple cider and added more chips and charcoal.
One thing we did learn was the importance of keeping the heat LOW.
After about the first hour the heat spiked a bit and sped up the cooking. Our ribs were nearly done at about 2 hours, when they should have taken longer.
We decided to lower the heat and leave them on for just a bit more, to see what would happen. Unfortunately, the ribs got a bit darker than we were hoping.
But, even with the darker color, after 2 1/2 hours we had some incredibly delicious ribs.
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Should I Brine Or Not
You can choose to brine your boneless country-style ribs before grilling them if you want. This is a great option for short on time, but you will need to use some quality ingredients to make the perfect blend of flavors.
A good mixture consists of:
- One cup water
- Two cups of salt
- One cup of brown sugar.
Mix all ingredients in a non-reactive bowl and pour over your pork ribs before placing them into the refrigerator overnight. Brining ensures that you will get flavorful meat on the bone. But, it is important to note that this method does not work for boneless ribs as the meat will not absorb those flavors.
Pork Ribs On The Grill
Looking for a tasty grilled rib recipe that goes from the fridge to your plate in just 4 hours?
Look no further.
The secret to a quicker grilling time in this recipe starts with cooking at a higher temperature as well as some time wrapped in foil and smothered in braising liquids and butter.
Whether you prefer them saucy and tangy or simple and to the point, this recipe is perfect for all taste buds.
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While you wont get the smoke ring you would for a traditional smoked rib, these ribs are just as tasty.
The rub and braise used in this recipe cook a delicious, pork flavor into the ribs, leaving them falling off the bone.
Youll also get that crunchy chew on the edges that many rib enthusiasts love, thanks to the rub, sauce, and braising liquids coating the ribs in caramelized sugars.
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Why Do Ribs Take So Long To Cook
Heres why. Because ribs contain a great deal of fat and connective tissue, the meat is naturally tough before its cooked. Only the long, slow cooking process can break down the tissues and render the fat to give you the tender, succulent texture you crave. Louis ribs typically take 5-6 hours before theyre done.
How To Cook Pork Ribs On A Gas Grill
To cook ribs on a gas or propane grill, you’ll need to set up the grill for smoking. You’ll need to leave the burners off on one side of the grill, and place the ribs there. The other burners will generate the heat. This is called cooking over indirect heat.
Some gas grills simply aren’t big enough to allow for indirect heat cooking, at least not for a cut of meat as generous as ribs.
If your grill does have enough space, you can start thinking about flavor. You can use wood pellets to generate smoke flavor. These pellets can go in a smoke box, or in foil packets.
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The Best Wood For Smoking Ribs
Searching for the key to perfectly grilled pork ribs? Search no more. Weve given you the basics, now well take care of the smoke. If youre planning on loading up your grill with some gorgeous racks, smoke them like they deserve to be smoked.
We recommend 50/50 cherry& pecan wood pellets. The slight nuttiness paired with its rustic richness makes it a full-bodied smoke that we love wrapping our ribs with.
We recommend 50/50 cherry& pecan wood pellets. The slight nuttiness paired with its rustic richness makes it a full-bodied smoke that we love wrapping our ribs with.
Instructions For Foil Wrapped Ribs:
1. Prepare the grill for direct cooking over medium heat .
2. In a small bowl mix the rub ingredients.
3. Remove the membrane from the back of each rack of ribs. Cut each rack crosswise in the middle to create two smaller racks.
4. Season each half rack evenly with the rub. Using eight 18-by-24-inch sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil, double wrap each half rack in its own packet.
5. Brush the cooking grates clean. Place the ribs on the grill over direct medium heat and cook for 1 hour, with the lid closed, occasionally turning the packets over for even cooking, making sure not to pierce the foil.
6. Remove the packets of ribs from the grill and let rest for about 10 minutes. Carefully open the foil packets, remove the ribs, and discard the rendered fat and foil.
7. Drain and add the wood chips directly onto burning coals or to the smoker box of a gas grill, following manufacturers instructions. When the wood begins to smoke, return the ribs to the grill, bone side down. Grill over direct medium heat, with the lid closed as much as possible, until they are sizzling and lightly charred, 10 to 12 minutes, turning and basting once or twice with the sauce. Remove from the grill and let rest for about 5 minutes. Cut into individual ribs and serve warm with any remaining sauce.
©2011 Weber-Stephen Products LLC. Recipe from Webers Time To Grill by Jamie Purviance. Used with permission
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