British BBQ Society Forums

Hi Guys,

So i just managed to get lot of baby back ribs from Makro as I couldnt get into costco.

Ive never seen these ribs in Makro before so I was well chuffed when I was able to purchase nearly the whole of the stock they had ( I have plenty of room in my freezer at the minute ).

I also had a small pork loin chop that i had in the fridge so what ive done is put plenty of rub on the pork loin steak and left it overnight in the fridge and although i couldnt stick it on the bbq as i really wanted to low and slow it, i put this single pork loin steak in the oven at 130c.

Now this was all just to test my rub really as its the first time ive made it.

The steak was lovely and has me all adventurous. I only had half as I shared the other half with the wife.

Im even thinking of buying another grill but after applying rub to one set of ribs Im holding off.

Dan

Hey Dan,

Three tips for you:

1. If you leave rub on ribs overnight it will start to cure the meat (as there's not much meat on them) this will mean your ribs are a bit like bacon. This is fine if it's to your taste, but you might want to experiment with the time you leave your rub on before cooking (as you sound like you've got lots of ribs )

2. If you like sweet, sticky ribs as a lot of people do, sprinkle some demerera sugar on the ribs, wrap in clingfilm then leave overnight, apply your rub first thing in the morning then cook them a few hours later.

3. If you go with 3-2-1 method for ribs, remember this timing is for spares and you will want to cut it down to 2-1-1 or even 1.5-1-1 for baby backs. Also during the foiled stage, add a few small knobs of butter and a very small amount of apple juice, I find this improves the outcome somewhat.

And your free bonus fourth tip....

...Which you'll probably already know anyway, if saucing your ribs, remember to warm the sauce up before applying.

I don't know how experienced you are with ribs, but I think they're easy to cook, but difficult to master. You don't want the meat to be falling off the bone, you want it to pull nicely from the bone when you bite into it. That little bit of resistance is what makes the best ribs. You can use a 3-2-1 (2-1-1) method as it will generally give good results but judging your ribs doneness is best doen by eye, look for the meat pulling back from the bones at the ends and also if you raise one end of the ribs off the grill to about 30 degrees the rack should bend nicely.

Sounds like you've got loads of ribs to practice with though - have fun...


P.S. I'm by no means a rib expert, nor am I a pork or chicken expert, Brisket, I'm pretty handy with

Hey Steve,

I really appreciate your invaluable advice.

My ribs definately turned out like bacon which i didnt want so now i know not to leave them over night in the fridge and only for a few hours.

Is this the same when cooking with all meats, I mean if i leave a rub on over nightwill it cure the meat rather than marinate it.

I suppose marinate would be a liquid rub ( is that right ? )

Im not actually sticking them in any bbq, grill or smoker but just in the oven so really they are just roasting.

I know im not going to get any real flavour but like i say at the moment im just experimenting.

I was wondering is there any sort of mini smoker thats available.

Thanks again Steve......feel free to divulge any more bonus tips

Rubs generally contain salt and sugar, if left long enough this will start to cure meat. However on a large cut like a pork shoulder or brisket, leaving overnight will only start to cure the outside of the meat. Ribs don't have much meat on them, so if you leave them over night then they do tend to cure and end up like bacon.

Marinades affect the flavour of meat depending on how long they are left. If you look around on the web you'll find general rules of thumb for marinade timings for different meats. However some marinades benefit from longer or shorter, it depends on the ingredients and what those ingredients do to the meat. Acid, alkaline marinades have different effects on the meat fibres. A marinade is a falvour enhancer, not really a liquid rub. You can also do wet rubs which are more like spice pastes used in Asian cooking. A simple marinade that will work on ribs is full fat coke, a pinch of salt and some worcesterhisre sauce. There are much better things but that works and you can make it up out what's probably already in your cupboard/fridge.

As for roasting them in the oven, it's nowhere near as good but you can still roast some nice ribs until you get a smoker.

Mini smokers?? Do you mean small or cheap? If I rmember right, you said in an earlier post that you had a kettle bbq from Tesco or somewhere. You can cook indirect on this by putting charcoal on one side of the grate and meat on the opposite side so it's not over the coals. Stick a disposable foil drip tray under the meat to stop the juices burning onto the bottom of your BBQ and to keep the charcoal in place and you're smoking!!!!

If you want to invest in a smoker, my first recommendation would be to talk to Toby about a Frontier, he sells them on EBay, his price is very good and he takes care of the warranty himself which means if something went wrong you'd get top service as he looks after people very well.

If the Frontier is too expensive, there's some Kingsford bullet smokers on EBay for about £80, I don't know how good these are though. I suspect that you will get what you pay for.

Other options are building a UDS - ours is coming in at about £40 but if you're a good scavenger you can probably do it cheaper. There are also various stove-top smokers available which I guess you might just fit some ribs on but I have never used one and have no idea if they are any good. Also keep an eye out on EBay for second hand large Weber Kettles (57cm) I got one for £20 recently and it's big enough to do ribs, legs of lamb etc using the indirect method I mentioned above.

If you want any help with finding parts to build a msoker or anything, just let me know.

Can someone confirm what the 3-2-1 method is please?

It's a method for cooking spare ribs.

3 hours cooking with smoke
2 hours cooked while wrapped in foil
1 hour to finish - startin to apply your glaze during whis period.

Be aware this isn't a hard and fast rule, the 3 hours will vary depending on the ribs. I find 2-2-1 or 2.5-2-1 works better.

There are other more reliable ways to tell when ribs are done like the bend test and the toothpick test.

I've been looking around to see if I could locate any baby back ribs. I found this place http://www.meats.co.uk/prodpage.asp?ProdID=71 which, fortunately I'll be passing next week. I just wondered if anyone had tried this place and had any comments on the meat quality.

Thanks

Ocado deliver pretty good baby back, they also have beef ribs at the moment but they are marindaded, tasted good though

Just a tiny bit too far for me to pop in, let us know how they are and also do they do sheets of spare ribs or shoulders/butts????

swebbo wrote:Ocado deliver pretty good baby back, they also have beef ribs at the moment but they are marindaded, tasted good though

Thanks for that swebbo, I was in Otley yesterday and called in at Waitrose, they only had twopacks on the shelf, suffice to say they're both in my fridge now!!

Also, they're on sale, the racks cost me £1.38 and £1.71