In the pantheon of barbecue meats, there are some notable standouts. Brisket is, perhaps, the queen of barbecue meats, but it is expensive, time consuming and easy to get wrong. Pulled pork is like the family’s ornery uncle. It’s always around, but people have mostly learned that it’s best not to pay attention. Pork ribs, on the other hand, always receive honored placement at the table and with good reason. Brisket could be ground into burger. Pork butts can be slow cooked in an oven, caja china, and used in various delectable ways. Pork ribs are really only at their best when cooked on a smoker. Grilled ribs leave a texture that is chewier than most people appreciate. Crock pot ribs and other slow-cooked, non-smoky preparations lose the structure of the rib and provide a “fall-off-the-bone” experience. While this isn’t bad, per se, it doesn’t hold a candle to a perfectly smoked rib, maintaining structure, cooked to ideal tenderness, pork as the primary flavor, backed up with smoke, salt, and maybe sweet and spicy glaze. 

When I bought my first smoker, pork ribs were the first conquest. The shorter cook, lower price, and the multitude of pork rib rubs available made it a natural choice. I tried various techniques and recipes and had mixed results. In the paragraphs below, I will give you my “Pitmaster’s Playbook” guide to pork ribs. Hopefully the reader can avoid the years of mistakes that often plague budding pitmasters when it comes to refining their rib cooking technique. I will provide temperature and rub guides as well as options when it comes to seasoning, trimming, wrapping, and finishing the perfect pork rib. 

Preparing Ribs for the Smoker

Your first choice when cooking ribs is what ribs you should choose. One of the secrets to great ribs that is either omitted or given short shrift in most guides is rib thickness/weight. At many of the top barbecue restaurants I have visited in Texas, they set minimum weights for the ribs they receive from meat suppliers. The thicker the rib, the more moisture retention. The thicker the rib, meatier each bite will be. So, to have the best results, select a rack that is thick and substantial enough to produce excellent bites even after a full smoke. When it comes to breed, brand, and size of the bill, there are myriad choices that will affect the final outcome. A detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this blog, but here are a few notes: heritage breed pork tends to have more myoglobin and richer flavor than commodity pork ribs; specialty products like Iberico and Berkshire have incredible marbling but are often trimmed extremely thin to maximize the weight of surrounding cuts. In order of importance, I would choose a heavier, thicker commodity rib over a well-marbled but thin rib. 

After selecting a rack of ribs, we come to the issue of trimming. If you choose a “full spare” there is a significant amount of trimming that becomes necessary.  Most restaurants choose ribs from their meat suppliers in this configuration, because it is the most cost effective. They are cheaper per pound, and the trim can be used in other dishes at the restaurant (beans for example). Most racks of pork ribs that are available in stores come as a “St. Louis” spare rib. This style of ribs was popularized by meatpackers in St. Louis during the middle of the twentieth century. This style removes the  sternum, excess cartilage and rib tips and creates a rectangular shape. We recommend these pre-shaped ribs as the easiest to get right on a consistent basis. 

Next we need to address the membrane. The membrane on a rack of ribs is the tough layer of connective tissue that separates the internal organs from the ribs and abdominal muscles and bones. There are essentially three different approaches to handling the membrane. The first option is to do nothing. The ribs are smoked with the membrane completely intact. This often happens at restaurants where they might be cooking 100 racks a day. If good tenderness is achieved, the membrane tends to be bite-through, but it can occasionally tear off big chunks of membrane when a customer takes a bite. The second option is to remove the membrane. This can be a little tricky and is best accomplished by using a butter knife to separate a portion of the membrane from the rest of the rack and then using a paper towel to get a good hold before you grip and rip the remainder of the membrane off. This process can be relatively straightforward or it can involve a dozen attempts whereby small pieces of membrane are removed before the process is restarted. This can take 30 seconds or 5 minutes, depending on how compliant that individual rack is. Additionally the removal of the membrane exposes a layer of fat underneath that will render and drip into the grease drain during the course of the cook.  The third option, which is my preference, is to score the membrane. This involves taking a sharp knife and making a cross-hatch pattern wherein you cut the membrane into small pieces. This means that even if the membrane doesn’t achieve perfect tenderness, you will not be pulling off big chunks of membrane while taking a bite. This method has the advantage of holding the rendered fat between the membrane and the meat, which seems to make the final product juicer without sacrificing tenderness. 

Seasoning Your Ribs

When it comes to rubs, there are myriad options from which to choose. Some are spicy, most are sweet, and some are savory. This question ultimately comes down to the flavor profile you are most interested in creating. You can choose a store-bought rub that suits your palate, but beware of how much sugar is in the rub. Sugar tends to burn so be judicious with managing temperatures if your rub is sugar-laden. Alternatively, you could choose a simple salt and pepper rub to maximize surface area and smoke flavor. This still allows you to glaze with a sweet sauce so that you don’t have to skip out on a sweet profile. Lastly, you can make your own rub with whatever ingredients you like. There is no right answer. 

The Cook

The cooking process for ribs is remarkably simple. First, it’s helpful to use a precision temperature measurement device like Signals™ BBQ Alarm Thermometer with Pro-Series® High Temp Air Probe to be certain of your temperatures. To maximize the smoke flavor on ribs during their relatively short cook (~6 hours), start the cook at a low temperature of 200°F for the first 2-3 hours. This low temperature allows the ribs to absorb smoke flavor while the meat is cool and moist. Once your desired color is achieved, increase the temperature to 250°F or higher. If you're using an offset smoker and have a rub with low sugar, you might want to increase to 275° rather than 250°. The reason a temperature increase is warranted here is two-fold. First, the increase in temperature causes the proteins to contract and gather meat to the middle which means each bite will be meatier and expose bones on the end. The second and more pragmatic reason to increase the temperature is to move the cook along and speed the total cook time. Pullback is never guaranteed. As this is a natural product, it doesn’t always behave in 100% predictable ways. 

After about 90 minutes of the increased temperature, your ribs will be ready to wrap. Key factors to look for are: deep mahogany color, fat yellowing and beginning to render, and internal temp of 165°+. Once you have reached these signs, you have to choose whether or not you want to wrap. In almost all cases wrapping your ribs will produce a better result. There are some restaurants where the sheer volume of ribs make it impractical to wrap all of the ribs, but for a backyard, wrapping ribs is always preferable. The most popular way to wrap ribs is a double layer of heavy duty aluminum foil. This is a great method, because it can also hold additional brown sugar, butter, and/or sauce without spilling. Additionally, wrapping in foil is the fastest way to finish your ribs. You can wrap your ribs with pink butcher paper and a scoop of lard if you’re going for an extra savory final product. The process is very similar. Place any additions (sauce, butter, lard, sugar, etc) on the foil or paper. Place the ribs meat side down on top of the additions. If you choose you can add more of these addition to the bone side before wrapping snugly. Place them back on the smoker until you reach the desired doneness. 

Now comes the issue of doneness. This is HIGHLY subjective. The ribs my mother cooked in the crockpot when I was growing up were so overdone that I had to search around in the sauce to find chunks of meat. Most of the thousands of people to whom I have served barbecue prefer their ribs to be overcooked by competition barbecue standards. Moreover, the competition level of tenderness is significantly softer than what you might experience at some of the most traditional barbecue restaurants in Texas. Much like the choice of rubs, this is according to your preference. Use a Thermapen to check temperatures so you can ensure consistent results. So here is a helpful guideline: If you prefer your ribs to be tender enough but to retain some chew, cook them to 203°. If you like competition tenderness, wherein the meat allows you to take a clean bite without any additional portion of the rib meat coming off of the bone, cook to 207°. If you prefer, like most of my catering clients, ribs to be very tender and on the verge of falling off the bone, cook to 209°. Finally, if you want fall-off-the-bone ribs, cook to 211-212°. 

Now you might think that when you have achieved tenderness the cook is complete. Au contraire, mon ami. Though some styles of ribs are unglazed (Texas, Memphis, etc), most backyard barbecue cooks are expected to provide a glazed rib. The glaze can be as simple as a slightly diluted barbecue sauce. Dilute sauces allow you to apply the sauce without it appearing gloopy. You can also construct your own glaze with a base of simple syrup and any assortment of flavors that suit your palate. How you apply the glaze of your choice is what we will focus on here. First remove your ribs from the smoker when they have reached your desired level of tenderness. Second, use the aluminum foil or butcher paper from the wrapping process to make a boat on which you place your ribs, meat side up. Apply your glaze with a Hi-Temp Silicone Brush and place back on the smoker until the surface becomes tacky and the glaze has set. This usually takes about 15 minutes.

Once the ribs have been glazed, allow them to cool if you can resist cutting into them right away. A perfect serving temperature is around 160°F. After cutting and plating they will have dropped a few more degrees. Slice them too hot, and they might fall apart. Too cold, and they won’t be appetizing. See the recipe guide below for my favorite way to cook pork ribs. Bear in mind that these are my preferences, but your preferred method might diverge significantly. This post should contain all the information necessary to achieve the results you want. Good luck and keep smokin’!