How To Grill Spare Ribs On Charcoal

How Long Does It Take To Grill Ribs On A Propane Grill

How To Make Ribs on a Charcoal Grill with Myron Mixon, BBQ Champion

The propane grill works efficiently in grilling ribs as propane gas heats the pan quicker and makes the grilling process done within less time.

So here you again need to preheat the grill but at 300-325F. If three burners are there, then turn off the middle burner and keep the other two at medium-low temperature. In this way, the heat is distributed evenly.

Place the ribs and cook for an hour. When the temperature turns to 145F then you are allowed to take it out from the grill and enjoy the meat.

Approximately 20 minutes are required for preparation and 1 hour for grilling. So a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes are required for grilling the ribs.

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To Precook Or Not To Precook

The rationale behind pre-cooking ribs is to tenderize the meat before it hits the grill. Then the grilling portion of the cooking process is more to add the char and adhere the sauce to the ribs. But is it necessary? If youre making side ribs, then yes, its a very good idea. As mentioned earlier, side ribs tend to be tougher than back ribs and benefit from some low-heat cooking to tenderize the meat.

Pre-cooking back ribs is optional it can make for an exceptionally tender rib, but it can be bypassed if youre not interested in cooking for hours. Do not precook country-style ribs if you intend on grilling them or they will be very dry.

How To Cook Ribs On A Traeger Grill

Setup your traeger to cook at 225 degrees and place ribs on grill. Check the pellet hopper to ensure pellets are full.

Pin On Traeger

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Video #: Smoking Ribs With The Snake Method

This video is really different from the first video for two reasons. The first is that it shows you a completely different way of arranging the charcoal. This method is called the Snake Method or the Fuse Method. The second difference is that, after the ribs get plenty of smoke for the first couple of hours, they are wrapped in aluminum foil.

He doesnt really go into why the ribs are wrapped but pitmasters do this for two reasons. First off, wrapping the ribs in foil accelerates the cooking process and get the ribs off the pit faster. Secondly, wrapping the ribs helps protect the color and prevents them from taking up too much smoke.

Whether or not you should wrap your ribs and exactly how to wrap them is a matter of preference and debate. Dont worry about that part right now and instead take a few minutes to learn how to set up a snake!

How Do You Prepare Spare Ribs

How to make Perfect BBQ Ribs on a Charcoal Grill Recipe ...

Spare ribs are so easy to prepare. You first need to wash the spare ribs in cold water then pat dry with paper towels. Some people remove the membrane from the back of the ribs, but I find that even if you don’t you are still left with delicious tender ribs.

Next, season the spare ribs with kosher salt and a generous amount of dry rub on both sides. Place the ribs in a roasting pan or baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Marinate the ribs for at least 1 hour up to 24 hours in the fridge.

After marinating the ribs, remove them from the fridge, place them on the countertop and allow them to come to room temperature before you start grilling.

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How Long To Cook Ribs On A Grill

Everyone likes to nib on a tasty rib! There are many recipes, from slow cooking and smoking to straight on grilling ribs, and the latter turned out to be the favorite of many. The main reason is, of course, the chance to get into it without having to worry about grease and rules in general. There is no special fork for ribs, and the whole grill cookout is interactive and fun for everyone, not just the cook.

In this guide, we will go through the most important info you need to get to that delicious and fun experience of eating nicely cooked ribs. People often think that grilling is easy, especially when it comes to larger pieces of meat, but that kind of attitude will only leave you with a chewy or charcoal-like meal, which no one likes. Not to mention the time invested, let alone the money for the meat and everything in between.

How Much Rub To Put On The Ribs

Estimate 1 tablespoon per pound of ribs. My ribs below are about 3.5 pounds each, so I put on 3.5 tablespoons of rub to each rack.

Rubbed on the left, not rubbed on the right

After it is rubbed down, put it back into the fridge until its time to smoke. We want the ribs cold when they go on the smoker. Colder meats take longer to cook, which allows for more smoke absorption.

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Cowboy Prairie Fire Bbq Sauce

Enjoy the flavors of the open range. Across the western frontier, chuck wagon chefs grilled over aromatic wood fires and created cowboy cuisine. Our sauces descend from those heritage recipes. They enhance grilled food rather than overpower it. Pair with beef, pork, and poultry, and everything in between.

Video #: Smoking Ribs With Banked Charcoal Briquettes

How to prepare BBQ Spare Ribs on a charcoal grill

This video shows the absolute most basic way of smoking ribs in a kettle. He is using a pile of charcoal banked on one side of the grill and cooks the ribs on the other side of the grill. Although he is only cooking one slab of ribs there is enough room on the grate to easily handle two.

This cook took a little over three hours. The cook was pretty fast because he wasnt cooking at as low of a temperature as he wanted. He wasnt using a thermometer at grate level to measure temperatures and was using an educated guess as to where the grill was running.

I love the video because it shows just how simple cooking ribs can be!

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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.

Prepare The Charcoal Grill For Smoking

Smoking is a form of indirect cooking and usually takes place over a period of hours over low temperatures.

Preheat the grill to about 200 to 250 degrees F max. To maintain this low temperature, begin by lighting only about 10 to 16 pieces of charcoal and set up the grill for an indirect Three-Zone Split-Fire. To do this separate the coals into two equal piles on opposite sides of the grill grate.

Charcoal baskets are great for holding the clusters of charcoal together. The baskets also help them burn longer.

Note: If you use wood chips instead of chunks, consider soaking a few handfuls in water for about 30 minutes before placing atop the coals. This will keep them from burning up too fast and will provide more smoke.

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Watch How To Make Smoked Baby Back Ribs On A Charcoal Grill:

At the end of these six steps if you break into a rack of ribs and notice a thin pink layer just beneath the surface of the meat. Congratulations! That is the highly prized smoke ring. Its kind of like a pink halo around the meat a sign of mouthwatering, succulent and flavorful smoked baby back ribs!

Break out a roll of paper towels its time to chow down!

Debbie, reporting for David Spivey.

#1 Prep the Ribs

  • Rinse the racks of ribs under cold running water and blot dry with paper towels.
  • Remove the membrane from the back of the ribs. The membrane is a thin, white looking skin on the back of each rack of ribs. This membrane can block out the flavor, because it creates a barrier against the seasoning.
  • To remove the membrane, lay the ribs onto a flat surface so that the curve of the ribs point up at you. Using a sharp knife, peel the membrane from one corner near the bone. Pull across the rack with firm steady pressure. If it tears, just pull up and continue where it tore off. Rinse and pat the ribs dry again.
  • Combine all the ingredients for the rub in a small bowl stir to mix. Rub the seasonings onto both sides of the racks.

#2 Prepare the Charcoal Grill For Smoking

#3 Smoking the ribs

#4 Low and slow

#5 Test For Doneness

  • The goal temperature of smoked baby back ribs is an internal temperature of 190 degrees F. Use an instant-read thermometer, such as the Thermapen by Thermoworks to take the temperature of the ribs. Be careful not to take the reading from the bone.

Instructions For Foil Wrapped Ribs:

How to make Perfect BBQ Ribs on a Charcoal Grill Recipe ...

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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Smoking = Low And Slow Cooking

When you are ready to cook, toss about 3/4 cup of soaked and drained wood chips onto the hot coals on each side of the aluminum pan.

You should notice smoke nearly immediately. Place your cooking grate on the grill. Close the grill and adjust your vents to get a proper temperature inside. You should be smoking at a low heat.

After a few moments, remove the cover of your grill and place your hand about four inches from the cooking grate. For a low heat you should be able to hold your hand over the grate for 8-10 seconds.

Of course, a more exact way of measuring the temperature of your grill smoker is with a leave-in probe thermometer. ThermoWorks makes a really cool tool for this in their Smoke 2-Chanel Alarm. It lets you monitor both the temperature of your meat and smoker at the same time, from one easy display. Definitely an essential to up your smoking game!

Smoking takes anywhere from 2-3 hours all the way up to 20 or more. It is this low and slow method that tenderizes the meat and infuses it with incredible flavor. A good smoke cant be rushed and will be ruined by heat that is too high.

Easy Backyard Barbecued Spare Ribs

These classically flavored spare ribs are good any time year. Serve ribs with corn on the cob, creamy cole slaw and corn muffins. Just be sure to make plenty because these ribs will disappear quickly .

  • 5 pounds pork spare ribs
  • 1 cup ketchup
  • 1 cup cherry juice or cherry-cola
  • 1/4 cup vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

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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

How To Trim Ribs

Spare Ribs Smoked On A Charcoal Grill

There are three areas on pork ribs to consider trimming.

One: on the underside or bone side of your ribs, there is typically a flap of meat. Trim as much of this off as you can.

Two: trim any major fat pockets on the top side of your ribs. Dont try to get all this off, but rather simply reduce the thickness of any fat pockets you find. Remember, the fat will render off pretty well during the cook process.

Three: I like to square up my ribs. I trim off the last one or two ribs from the small bone end to make them a bit more uniform. This is more common with St. Louis spare ribs than baby backs. This is optional and more about aesthetics than anything else.

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Smoking Meat Without A Smoker

If you ever thought you had to have a big, fancy smoker to achieve the tender, flavorful meat that only comes from low and slow smoking. Stop right there and let this sink in:

You can smoke meat in your charcoal grill.

Sure you can. But, its got to be super complicated and bothersome. Thats what we thought when we heard it was possible to smoke in a grill. But, with Tims love of smoked meats, and the purchase of a smoker not in our near future, we decided to give it a try with what we had.

How To Prepare The Ribs

The key to any good round of ribs is proper preparation. This stage can make or break the success of your meal and neglecting good prep will give you bland, inferior ribs. Simply throwing them as you bought them onto the grill isnt going to cut it.

For your rib choice, I suggest going for pork. And then there are 2 varieties: Spare or baby back ribs.

Personally, I prefer spare. Theyre cut from the belly-end of the ribs, so are much meatier. Baby back are a little shorter but still an excellent choice. Cooking time tends to be about 4-5 hours for spare and 3-4 for baby back.

Its also important to bear in mind that your grill will dictate the size of the rack that you can cook at once. We want as much of the ribs to be exposed at once, so its not a good idea to pile them on top of each other. As a result, you will probably only be able to fit one rack of spareribs on the grill or two racks of baby back. Keep this in mind when preparing your ribs.

You will then need to cut the ribs down to just the rib rack. If you havent done this before, check out my full guide on how to trim spare ribs.

Start by removing the membrane from the rack. Not a lot of grillers do this, but doing so removes this thin skin off the back of the ribs, allowing them to be tender and packed full of flavor.

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How Do You Make Ribs Tender On The Grill

The secret to making tender ribs on the grill is low and slow cooking. Low cooking temperatures allow the collagen in the tough meat to slowly break down and melt during the lengthy cooking session. If your ribs are tough they simply need to cook longer, as long as you have been cooking them at the right temperature.

Preparing The Charcoal Grill

Jonny

Now it’s time to turn your charcoal grill into a smoker. This is easily done with two disposable aluminum pans. They should be about half the size of your charcoal grill. One of these pans will act as a drip pan that helps hold the charcoal in place and keeps drippings away from the fire. The other pan will be filled with water to add moisture to your grill and to help regulate the temperature.

Start with a clean charcoal grill. Remove the cooking grate and start the charcoal. We’re using a charcoal chimney which will light the perfect amount of charcoal. You will need enough charcoal to cover half the coal grate with three layers of charcoal.

Once the charcoal is lit, place one of the aluminum pans on the coal grate and pour the charcoal on the other side. You might need to bend the pan a little to fit it properly.

Now, it’s time to add the wood. The wood is important for creating the smoke. We suggest large wood chunks since it will take longer to burn and provide smoke as you need it. Use several chunks for a good smoke supply.

Return the cooking grate and place the second aluminum pan on it, directly over the charcoal. Fill with as much water as it can hold. The goal is to keep the grill at a consistent and low temperature . The water will steam away slowly and you shouldn’t need to add more water, but keep an eye on it.

Now you have converted your grill into a smoker.

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