How to Make BBQ Ribs on a Charcoal Grill
**Article: How to Cook Perfect Texas Spare Ribs - A Step-by-Step Guide**
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### Introduction to Texas Spare Ribs
Texas spare ribs are a beloved dish in barbecue culture, known for their rich flavor, tender meat, and distinctive "bark"—the crust that forms on the ribs during cooking. In this article, we’ll walk through the process of preparing and cooking Texas spare ribs using techniques demonstrated by Chef Joe and his team. From trimming and seasoning to smoking and glazing, we’ll cover every step in detail.
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### Breaking Down Spare Ribs
The first step in cooking perfect Texas spare ribs is breaking down the slab. Here’s what you need to know:
1. **Trimming Excess Fat**:
- Similar to trimming brisket, you want to remove any thin pieces of meat or fat that might dry out during the cook. Pull on the edges and trim off any excess.
- Be mindful of the "mini skirt" on the ribs, which can become tough during cooking. Some people choose to leave it for added meat, but it’s worth trimming if you want a cleaner cook.
2. **Removing the Membrane**:
- The membrane on the back side of the ribs can make them tougher and harder to slice. Use a knife to lift and peel off the membrane. This step is optional but highly recommended for a cleaner finish.
- If unsure about removing the membrane, leave it on if you prefer the extra structure it provides.
3. **Trimming the Breastbone**:
- The breastbone at the corner of the rib can cause issues during slicing. Use a knife to trace along the cartilage and remove this bone for easier preparation.
- Ensure the ribs are uniform in size and shape, ideally with 11-13 bones per slab.
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### Seasoning the Ribs
Seasoning is a crucial step that enhances flavor and ensures even cooking:
1. **Salt and Pepper**:
- Chef Joe recommends seasoning ribs with salt and pepper separately for better control. Start by applying coarse black pepper, then follow up with a fine salt.
- Focus on seasoning the top side (presentation side) generously since this will be the finished face of the ribs.
2. **Avoid Over-Salting**:
- Be cautious not to over-season, especially if you plan to add sauce later. The goal is to enhance flavor without overpowering it.
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### Setting Up Your Cooker
For this recipe, Chef Joe uses a Weber kettle grill, but the principles apply to any smoker:
1. **Fire Management**:
- Create an offset setup by placing unlit coals on one side and hot coals on the other. Add wood chunks for smoke.
- Maintain consistent temperatures between 230°F-260°F for a slow, even cook.
2. **Cooking Multiple Racks**:
- If cooking multiple slabs, use separate areas of the grill or smoker to monitor each rack individually and ensure even cooking.
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### Cooking the Ribs
The key to tender Texas ribs is patience:
1. **Initial Cook**:
- Place the ribs bone-side down on the cooler side of the grill. This protects the thicker, fattier tips from burning.
- Avoid spritzing during the first 3-4 hours to develop a dark, rich bark.
2. **Glazing**:
- After 3-4 hours, when the ribs have rendered fat and developed color, apply a thin glaze of thinned barbecue sauce (mix with apple cider vinegar if needed).
- Use a squeeze bottle or brush for even coverage.
3. **Wrapping in Foil**:
- For the final 30-45 minutes, wrap the ribs in foil to tenderize them further. This step is optional but recommended for leaner cuts.
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### Resting and Finishing
1. **Resting**:
- Allow the ribs to rest for 30 minutes after cooking to set the juices and make slicing easier.
2. **Slicing**:
- Use a serrated knife to slice between the bones. Look for natural ridges in the meat to guide your cuts.
- Avoid over-sawing; if you hit a bone, simply remove it and continue with the rest of the slab.
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### Final Touches and Tasting
1. **Presentation**:
- Texas ribs are best enjoyed as is, without excessive garnish. The natural color and glaze should be showcased.
2. **Tasting**:
- Chef Joe and Grant tasted the ribs after cooking, noting their juiciness and balanced flavor. The Green Egg rack was particularly praised for its tenderness and depth of flavor.
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### Conclusion
Cooking Texas spare ribs is a labor of love that rewards you with tender, flavorful meat. By following these steps—trimming, seasoning, smoking, glazing, and resting—you can achieve restaurant-quality results at home. Whether you’re using a Weber, PK, or Green Egg smoker, the principles remain the same: patience, consistency, and attention to detail.
Happy cooking, and enjoy your perfectly smoked Texas spare ribs!
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*For more recipes and tips, visit [Chefsteps.com](https://chefsteps.com).*
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This article is based on the provided transcription and expands each section into a readable format without summarizing or condensing any details.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's rib day again here at Chef steps I'm here with Joe and we are cooking Texas spare ribs today and we're not buckling down into one rib in one tool in one specific way Joe's going to take all of his knowledge and expertise and show you how to make amazing Texas Ribs no matter what cooker you've got in your backyard and I think to me what a Texas Spar rib is salt and pepper a lot of pepper to add a little bit of texture and I think this sauce and that part to me is subjective you can kind of do whatever you want but the technique and how to get the bark where you need it to be and cook it a certain way and I the wrap to get to a certain type of tenderness to me that's what a Texas Sparro is I love it let's cook them let's cook them and eat them all right so we're getting into breaking down this spare rib and there's just a couple things that we want to kind of keep in mind uh similar to trimming a brisket you want to trim off any ends or thin bits that are going to get dry over the course of this cook um and so as you kind of like you know pull on the edges right here you can see there's quite a bit of thin meat and some fat that's kind of like hanging off the edges that's definitely going to have to go um and if I flip this over again we're just kind of yanking and pulling on the stuff there's a little bit of extra fat that I want to trim off and especially on these ribs we have this kind of like mini skirt some people like to leave this on um just because it's a little added meat but this tends to get a little tough during that long cooking process and also if you kind of leave this on and you cook it this will eventually curl up a little bit during the cooking process and right underneath here you're going to get like a bald patch just because you're not going to get as much smoke as you would on the entire rib so when I'm trimming this up I'm always going to St in the back end there just a lot more going on over here that we want to clean up before we flip it over so for for this skirt I'm just going to go by the end right here using the full length of the knife and just kind of pull it up and just kind of keep it close to the rib just so that we don't leave any lingering bits on the bottom and we'll leave that off to the side you know there's a debate of whether or not you need to remove the membrane uh you know for today's purposes we're just going to do so just CU I think it eats a little bit cleaner in most cases uh and if you end up cooking a little bit too hot this membrane can become really chewy uh so if you guys are a little bit unsure about you know managing fires consistently I would definitely recommend taking that spot off and you're just going to try to get right underneath this membrane right above the bone uh and then you're going to kind of twist your knife so you can kind of lift it up just enough to where again you can get like a finger you can get uh a back of spoon something like that and you're just going to peel it up and hopefully if we do it right we can get it all in one piece so just going to run kind of your fingers your thumb all the way across and it does get a little bit slippery so if you're having a hard time doing so use a dry paper towel and just slowly just get all that lifted off sometimes if I'm doing a lot of these ribs I won't remove them just because it is a little bit annoying to do you know one thing that I kind of like about it is it does add a little bit of structure to your rib so as you kind of cook it these membranes hold the ribs together a little bit more um so some people like it just CU like it gives it a little bit more chance to cook it to be a little more tender just because you have this membrane that gives you a little bit more wiggle room to get that really super soft texture on the rib if that's where you guys are into all right now that we got our membrane removed uh it looks a lot cleaner and and the biggest difference that I would say that uh that you have to take off I think most people are familiar with the membrane but it's this breast bone that's on this corner of the rib um so if you guys see right here it's not cartilage it's actual bone and it's split with this piece of cartilage that's running right through a center right here and we're going to have to take the breast bone off because later on when we go slicing the ribs when they're finished we're going to be able to cut through the cartilage but we're definitely not going to be able to get through like this hard bone so that's going to come off and it's going to make for an easier cook so the way that I like to do it I still like to do it with the meat side down so once I get that find where that cartilage is and I know where the angle of that is I'm going to basically leave my knife here and kind of give me a guide or I'm going to trace out this line once I find that line that I like place my knife right on top and you should hear a crunch going all the way through if you're not hearing a crunch and you're just boom hitting a bone definitely pick your knife back up and move it to a different spot and then once you get the a cartilage just drag your knife and this is what we have right here we got all this bone off but then we have these kind of like spots where this cartilage is going to be definitely need to cut this off and there is a big nice chunk of meat on top of this section as well this is probably when we're talking about you know how to utilize the most trim and barbecue restaurants for added Pork and Sausage this is a chunk that we use a lot just because there's good amount of fat and good amount of meat on top of there generally when I'm trimming off ribs and I think this is one of the things that's going to help someone like if we're in the restaurant and you have an average number of ribs per rack makes it really easy for a cutter to be able to tell a customer like hey a full racker ribs is like you know going to be 3 lb or 3 and A2 lbs as long as you keep it super consistent so so I always like to count anywhere between you know 11 to 13 bones they're really really good and really even uh so from here because I know I like this bone I'm just going to count on so I got one two three four five 6 seven eight nine 10 11 and then this 12th one's really small so in this case we only have 11 but once I decide I'm going to take this bone off I'm not going to cut it straight down the middle I'm gonna take my knife closest to that bone that I'm gonna take off just so that this rib on the very endend is really nice and Meaty so that the person who gets his first bone is going to be really happy with the thick rib so once we have this once we find out where the bone is kind of line your knife up closest to that spot and then just go straight down all right so again a lot of this meat that we have here is really thin this bone is super small like this is not something that I wanted to I would want to serve to a customer or honestly even your friends and family you should not be giving them this bone right here so that's going off this side all right now that we got all the edges kind of situated this is where I'm finally going to flip the rib over um this is going to give us an idea of like now I want to make sure that my ribs are nice and squared off and they're nice and boxy so that the rib rack is going to cook nice and consistently that we get a rib on this end and this RI and this end to be you know as close size as possible and if I do so again I'm going to pull as much ribm out as I possibly can and trace a line that is kind of going to give us that boxy shape and again we don't want any sharp Corners because any sharp Corners especially for ribs are going to dry out because rib meat is pretty thin um so as I trace this line boom right there I got a nice uniform shape all the way across then from there we'll take that off then stretch out the corners this corner is really thin so I'm going to round this one off as well and this is you don't have to do the step this is just more so uh how I learned how to do a bunch of ribs you know working in restaurants because again we want our customers even if they're getting a really small bone on the end I'd rather give them a rib that's a little bit shorter and it's cooked well all the way across then give them a really really long bone where one end is super dry and kind of like it's just not a great presentation it doesn't eat very well and that corner will kind of get like a Jerky like texture which you know I don't think is really great for ribs either so trying of stretch this out again and just round it off as best as you possibly can uh and just kind of think about a rib that you would want to eat at the end of the day all right so this is our racker ribs uh I'm pretty happy with it it's nice and uniform all the way across you know I got my target of having 11 to you know 13 bones is kind of what I'm shooting for uh I don't have any edges that are dried out they're nice and rounded and every single rib is going to have a decent amount of fat coverage on top right now that we got our ribs trimmed up we got the shape that we're looking for and now we're just going to Simply season them with just salt and pepper the way I like to season them I think ribs are a little bit more delicate and because it's pretty thin uh you want to have that salt control a little more consistent if I'm doing like a 100 of them probably won't be doing it this way but if you're only doing a couple at home where you want to control the salt level presentation wise at least for me for ribs are really important with the glaze and kind of placement of how I like my pepper I'm a little more picky on that so with the salt and pepper I'm going to do them separately and with these because we want to leave the presentation side last and going to also season from the bottom side first I like to season with a coarse black pepper and I'm going to start seasoning with the pepper first uh only because sometimes when you season with salt uh sometimes as it kind of sits up top things like a coar ground black pepper might not stick so I'd rather start with a nice even coat of the black pepper and then all the spots that are in between all your finer salt grains will be able to land perfectly just fine now that we have our pepper placement the where we want now we're just going to go with salt and on this bottom portion you know it's not super important to Salt like the membrane and things like that I think it's important to season everything but this portion up top where you have a lot of meat right on top of the bone I would say you definitely want to season this portion properly because if not this piece is nice and thick and we want to season both sides uh nice and evenly once we're happy with the placement of the pepper we got that salt seasoned evenly all across now we're flipping over and this is our presentation side uh last Quick Check that I like to do is anything on the surface sometimes there's a little like bits of meat that might be sticking up this one's pretty clean so nothing sticking there's this really small piece that I'm just going to put off to the side because if it comes off later there's going to be like one random patch on your rib that's going to be a little bit lighter it's not that big of a deal it's not going to change the flavor or anything I just don't like it so with a pepper when I'm because I'm using a Shaker um when I'm seizing it I'm almost seizing it from the like an inch or two outside of the ribs on both sides because if you just try to sprinkle in between the ribs the way the Shaker works the top and the bottom your rib is going to have more pepper on there you want to season from about here to here so that the pepper that actually lands on the rib is going to be nice and even so the wrist motion that we're having having is just kind of it's like a very nice even back and forth uh you don't want to like stop or be really aggressive going pushing or pulling it's just like a really nice kind of just uh nice even sprinkling and it really does come with practice I know it seems so simple that it's just like yeah you just have a Shaker and do so but having a nice consistent kind of wave back and forth will allow that spread to kind of like especially C on High um you can see there's pepper everywhere it's not really clumpy at any spot there's not one spot that's darker than another yeah that's what we're looking for and that's what's going to give us a lot of texture on these ribs uh but also kind of more of that bite that you would get or like a spiciness not necessarily from a cayenne pepper but from that kind of floral flavor that you get from like a cracked black pepper over top I'm going be a little more generous with a salt because there's a a lot more meat up top we don't want to go too crazy but just enough coating to right now where it looks a little bit white on top but it's not coated completely white like you would do with a steak um because later on we are going to be adding sauce to these ribs so we don't want to overseason these now um but at the same time kind of like you would do in any sort of cooking process you want to season every step of the way all right normally when I cook barbecue I'm used to cooking on offset smoker and most people think that you have to have a super expensive smoker in order to create high quality barbecue but you can still do the same thing and create the same level of barbecue just as long as you understand and follow the same principles as you would with an Offset Smoker uh so today we're going to be using a Weber kettle Grill it's easily accessible something that you can find anywhere and there's a lot of different accessories that you can add to it to replicate that same style of cooking so just like an Offset Smoker what we want to do is create as much air flow as possible uh and just in the same way we want to make sure that the heat source is on one side of smoker while whatever meat that we're cooking on is on the opposite side and what we're using today is just this coal basket where we have unlit coals to start and then we're going to add in a few lit coals to allow it to slowly slowly cook over time and as we have all these vents open we'll be able to get as much air circulating there as possible to get heat uh and smoke circulating almost like a convection oven so I'm just going to grab a few coals that are hot and we're just going to wedge them to the side right here and as this starts to light it'll slowly Gra gradually move over that way you won't have to refuel your fire over and over and over again because it's burning too fast and most importantly when we're setting this up the holes on the lid are going to be in the opposite side of where the fire is and where we're talking about fire management you hear fire management all the time when we're talking about barbecue usually when we're talking about big offset smokers we're talking about using logs and a shovel to move things around but in this situation then we're going to adjust by playing around with the events on the top and the vents in the bottom to make sure that we create the right level of air flow and if it gets a little bit too hot we can close down the vents a little bit and if it's too cool either we can add more coals to the fire or we're going just open up the vents so just like any other cooker we want to make sure we preheat this almost like you're preting in an oven so just because the smoker is not that big you can give it about 20 30 minutes or so and we're trying to bring this up to about 230 degrees 240 degrees just so it's nice and warm before we put our meat in all right now that we got our Weber uh preheated uh we're going to put the ribs on we're going to have the bone side of the rib facing the fire the reason why we want to do that right now is the rib tip section on the opposite side has a little more fat and we don't want that to overcook too early in the cooking process so as we monitor it the bones are going to help us to give us a little bit of barrier and if it gets a little bit too hot I'm not overly concerned about you know the RIS becoming dry we're going to pop the lid on and again we're going to keep the lid with the vents right over the ribs that way as this Cooks we can get all that heat and that smoke traveling across and leaving over on top of the ribs now one of the things that I want to address when talking about ribs is a lot of people want to Spritz the ribs every 30 minutes to an every hour in this cook we're not going to do any spritzing at all until maybe the 3 4our Mark we don't want to Spritz ribs too often just because it's going to wash off a lot of our bark and our color and it's not going to allow us to get those bright red color ribs that most people are looking for and if you open the lid and you're spritzing too often it's just going to extend your cook T and ribs way longer and just for the sake of having a faster cook building a better bark having better color we're just going to leave it close and monitor our temperature about 240 to 260° for the first 3 to 4 hours and the different stages of our cook our first 3 to 4 hours were really just trying to build good color and also render some fat that's lingering inside of our rib especially in the rib tip section if you don't render out that fat that section of the rib can be really really chewy and then the cartilage in there will be really hard to bite through and we don't really want that in our rib after initial 3 or 4 hours once we got all that good color that we're looking for and that fat is starting to render is when we're going to start to add additional flavors to it so at that point we're going to add a nice glaze to it let it set to get nice and sticky and build more color and then we'll wrap the ribs up for another 30 to 45 minutes so that we can get them nice and tender after that we'll let them rest for about 30 minutes just so that our ribs are at a good place where we can slice them because if we don't let them rest and we cut them too soon they'll shred like pulled pork and right now we're shooting for a cooking temperature about 240 to 260° all right so at this point our ribs have been cooking for about 2 hours or so and our fire has definitely uh died down so we need to add some more coals and as you guys can see like the coals have become a lot more ashy there's not really any more heat that's coming out so we definitely need add a couple more wood chunks to get a little more smoke in there and at this point because it's still fairly warm all we need to do is add some unlit forquet to it uh that way it'll slowly slowly start to build up temperature again and then the wood chunks that we add in there will give us that continuous smoke so the way that I'm going to kind of rebuild this fire I'm going to get all the I'm going try to get rid of kind of give us a light shake that way we can see all those coals that still kind of exist and we're going to put our unlit coals on top of it and then we're going to leave some that are not right next to it cuz again it'll slowly slowly start to burn and kind of give us a little bit longer of a cooking time and just like we did earlier we're going to take one of these wood chunks and then again put it on the opposite side where it's a little bit cooler just cuz don't want this to catch on fire uh but eventually we do want it to start kind of producing smoke for us you can see right away as soon as we put those unlit coals in there all the kind of lighter coals at the bottom are already starting to burn and are going to bring that temperature back up right away so setup is still the same we got the ribs on the opposite side of our fuel source the way that our pepper that we placed earlier is nice and even and it's going to give us a nice contrast and the ribs are starting to get that really nice red color from that smoke and that heat that's coming up uh but it's not quite ready yet and even though at this point you might be tempted to take your Spritz bottle and spray your ribs don't do that you're at this point there's not this is not like a brisket where it has a fat cap on top where that Fat's going to render so your ribs are going to look kind of dry for a while but what we're really really looking for is all that fat that you kind of see lace in between all these ribs we're trying to get to a point where that starts to render and it'll start to make make our ribs look a little bit juicier and a little bit more like glossy just from the render juice and fat so until that point we're going to keep it closed keep our temperatures consistent and uh we'll check on in a couple more hours so it's about 3 hours uh since we started this cook and now we're going to just do a quick check on these ribs to see where they're at uh we also have ribs on two other cookers on a PK and a green egg and I just want to show you guys how we set up these fires in all three of them and just to see how they cook so first on our Weber we still have to add a little more coals here uh the fire's kind of died down but sometimes like when I don't when I'm a little bit nervous about adding more coals because I don't want to spike the heat up too much um but it still needs a little more air I just keep around with me this portable fan and uh all we're really doing is kind of just introducing a little more air uh if those coals just need a little more help so if it gets super super Smoky but you don't want to add more coals to your coal basket uh just give it a little more time give a little more air and um you know after a few minutes put the lid on and if it's still dying then it's probably a good time to add more coals uh just because our wood chunk has gone fire we're just going to kill that uh kill that wood a little bit always to have that Spritz bottle just handy especially with these wood chunks um now let's take a look at these ribs real quick at this point we haven't spritzed these ribs with anything at all all it's been is just just getting temperature from our coals a little smoke from our wood chunks and that's what's really developing the color on these ribs but the one thing that we're looking for and to add a little bit of moisture to the ribs is like we talked about earlier with all these kind of like white lines where right now they're they're kind of more yellow at this point just because of all the smoke that it's kind of collected we're waiting for these spots to really really pull out a lot of bit of fat and moisture and kind of like glaze the surface of these ribs so this spot right here you can kind of see if I squeeze down on there there's a little bit of juice that's starting to come off like these spots that um are are fat if I like look at my fingertip it's starting to get a more glossy so that's a good sign that we've taken the time to render out that fat um this Edge is really thin so um you know this one's a little bit darker but the one thing that's it's telling me is even though this is really really thin sometimes when you cook too hot this thing will kind of curl up so the fact that that it's not curling up too much uh it's giving me an indication that temperature- wise we're doing okay uh but we still probably need maybe another 30 minutes or so until uh these are ready to Sauce so next is our PK and as you guys see the design of this Grill is a lot different than our Weber instead of being round it's a lot longer but it's also more narrow so trying to fit this rack of ribbon here is a little bit of challenge U I'm trying to out the best way to do so so we kind of put an angle but at the same time we're still trying to use the same concept of an Offset Smoker where we got heat on one side and we left the vent uh over here wide open just so we can get all that smoke and all that heat to travel across the rib um and this one as you can see there's a lot more fat on this rib than the one that we had previously and you can kind of see those little kind of like bubbles that are coming on top right there and there's a little bit more moisture if I were tilt this over a little bit you probably will see some of this liquid just running off like right there so that's what we want to see at this point we want to see some of that juice some of that fat uh staring to kind of roll off and that's what's going to allow us to get a juicy rib without having to Spritz our rib with a bunch of liquid just the way that this rib is situated and it's across this way and obviously this corner is closer to the fire so there is a little bit of pullback on these ribs um but I'm not overly concerned U only because I know that the ribs on this side are a lot thicker than the ribs over here so I think right now we're doing pretty good later on if I feel like this side is getting way more done than this side I might flip them but I'm pretty happy with the way they look at this moment so last one is on Green Egg this one initially kind of took us a while to get the fire uh started but because it's a ceramic and holds in a lot of heat once we got the temp up it was rocking at a good cooking temperature that we're looking for um so this rib is actually the biggest river that we have but in my opinion I think this is the best rack that we have on so far it seems like there's a lot more going on uh you can kind of see how the ribs in between these bones are starting to plump up a little bit uh that's giving us a a good indication that they're starting to cook a little bit more than the other ones you kind of see right up top right here if I squeeze it there's a lot more juice a lot more fat rolling off of this one so I think the biggest difference between the rack of rib that's on this one opposed to uh the Weber or the PK is the rib is a lot bigger so because it's bigger I think it can handle a little more heat and there's obviously more juice that's coming out of it um and you know when you're trying to select a rib finding ones that are a little bit bigger can definitely be beneficial because it can handle a little bit more heat but you also have to keep in mind that if you don't cook it hot enough uh it will end up being really really chewy so I think this is kind of what we're looking for this is the one that's looking the best out of all them so far um and we're just going to let it go for a little bit longer to get a little bit more color hopefully render a little more fat and then I think soon they'll be ready to glaze all right the one other thing that I want to check to make sure my ribs are ready to go is look at the bottom of the ribs so if I flip this over you can see that how right underneath there you see all that juice and all that fat that's starting to run off we have great golden color underneath we got smoke and all the way across the bottom as well and this top portion is where that rib tip is and there's a lot more fat in this section and one of the tests I like to do is a kind of like a squish test and you can kind of see in this top section as I give it a squeeze all that juice that's starting to run out that's what I'm looking for that's going to give me an idea of the fat underneath that rib is starting to cook out as it hits that fire right there it's a good sign uh and so that's what we're looking for and looking at that top section of that rib where that rib tip section is where there's a little more fat that's also where the cartilage is going to be and that's the part that at this point we want to get a little more ahead uh because if that part isn't tender yet and it's not starting to render fat uh it's most likely going to not be tender even though we wrap them in ribs so because of the rib section feels that way uh that's a pretty good indication for me in about 20 to 30 minutes or so once you render just a little bit more fat get a little more color um that's when we're going to start glazing these ribs all right so just after looking at the green egg and how well that one looks I kind of want to go back to the smaller rib um and you know as we look at this one it doesn't have that same color that we're looking for also doesn't have that same fat rendering that we got uh if I squeeze the top of that rib you can see there's like no moisture that's coming out so it still needs a little bit more time it's getting close but uh it's still much much tighter than the other rib and I think that and I that has to do with the fact that just the Green Egg just holds in a little bit more heat uh while this one is a little like the metal is a lot thinner and a lot of heat has just been escaping uh during this cook and we're having to refuel this a lot more which just means opening and closing the door way more often is really slowing down this cook time so even though all three of these ribs went on pretty much the same time and the Weber actually got up to tempt the quickest the PK kind of was really slow and same same with the green egg but those other two held temp a lot better once they got up and they're a lot they're a lot juicier and they're way more ahead um so you know when you're cooking barbecue there's just a lot of factors to think about depends on like what temperature of cooking depends on how well your cooker is holding the temperature and there's just so many factors that come with barbecue so when you're cooking barbecue that's why it's really important to cook by these cues of you know by visual cues by feeling things I need the smell of it like the one in the green egg and the PK it almost smells like a roasted pig while opposed to this one you kind of just get more of that charcoal smell so when you're cooking barbecue use all your senses and don't just base everything on time now that are ribs are getting close to being at a point where we can glaze our ribs we want to take any type of barbecue sauce that you guys like um and you know for me ribs are very subjective some people like their ribs really sweet some people like them really spicy some of them like them super glazed and just like covered in sauce um but for today's ribs what we want to do is kind of create a nice glaze on top of them and this is more of a way that we cook ribs in Texas where it's a thinner sauce and the consistency is nice and smooth so that like you can get a good mix of this nice sticky rib but it's not overly sauc and for the sauce that we're going to be using today like this consistency of the sauce is kind of what we're looking for it's a little bit runny uh but it's still fairly sweet it has a good amount of acidity to it uh so it's a little more balanced in terms of a barbecue sauce but for an example uh we're going to take a sauce that's a little bit thicker and kind of thin it out so for those of you guys who have barbecue sauces that have maybe more molasses more sugar and it's quite thick uh we want to be able to take the sauce that you guys really like and still apply that same technique to it so the way that we're going to thin out this barbecue sauce is just adding a little bit of apple cider vinegar to it um especially if you guys have a sweeter sauce I think it's a great liquid to use just because it brings a little more Tang to it and at the end of the day I feel like it when we're trying to create sauces we're looking for something that's sweet spicy Tangy all those good things um and just to show you the consistency of this sauce you can see it's quite thick and that has to do with a lot of like ketchup or tomato paste a lot of sugar a lot of molasses that makes it really thick and gloopy and when you have like these chunks of sauce um that you're going to glaze on your ribs your ribs have these like pockets of sauce that um you know kind of get dark on one side and they over reduce and if you cook a little bit too hot actually can create a bitter flavor so uh we're going to thin this sauce out for right now so we're just going to add a little bit of apple cider vinegar to it just to start and take a whisk and if you don't want to add apple cider and vinegar if your barbecue sauce is still very acidic um you can use a little bit of water to it as well if um if you don't want to add more vinegar to your sauce so as I'm mixing this sauce in the bowl I'm looking at how much sauce is sticking to the rim of the bowl as I'm mixing it if there are these big chunks of maybe tomato paste or ketchup um trying to make sure that that doesn't happen also just seeing that it's just like all that pulp that might be in there those like thick pasty pieces that that's a little more smooth as we kind of uh add more vinegar or other liquids to it now it seems like the texture on Top's a lot smoother than it was before and that's there you go that's a little bit more of the consistency that we're looking for where it just runs really smooth um we don't have giant clumps of sauce anymore right then so if we just see on the back of the spoon it still coats like it's not a super just watered down sauce like we still want it to be Coating in the back of the spoon we just don't want it to be super super thick where the back of our spoon is that really dark ruby red and again if you just you wipe the back of the spoon again your sauce should still be sweet but it has a nice Tang has nice acidity and also as the sauce kind of reduces it will intensify a little bit so if it's really strong and really really sweet to start off with and we cook it down and create that glaze your ribs are going to be really really sticky and maybe overly sweet at that point now that we got the sauce to the consistency that we want um now we can transfer it to a squeeze bottle like we have here or you know just or you can use a brush with a cup and just so that we can be really controlled with the amount of sauce only thing that we don't want to happen is have like piles and pools of sauce on top of Rose B being cooked all right so now we're checking on these ribs that we got in our Weber looking at these right now they have that color is nice and dark now and it has that gloss that we were looking for again we didn't Spritz these at all but there is a little bit of liquid pooling if if I tip it over there's some juices that are dripping off and that's going to that's a sign for me that these ribs are ready to to get glazed up so again we're just going to get that light coat on there brush it lightly with our fingers covering every single inch and we're going to knock off the excess and you can already see just how much richer of a color that is even though we didn't throw that back on the smoker yet and this is something that I didn't talk about earlier but even just that light peppering that uh we see right now it kind of enhances the color of the rib a little bit you're going kind of see how that pepper is kind of speckled throughout and it almost shows a little bit more in terms of presentation once we got the sauce on there so these will go back on the Weber and we'll let them sit and glaze for about 15 or 20 minutes as these ribs have been glazed and been sitting in here for about 30 minutes or so everything is really nicely kind of caked on there it's not running anymore it kind of has that nice gloss and Sheen to it and that rib tip section is a lot softer than it was before so that's great uh so anytime you let's say on these thinner ribs towards the end of the cook when they're glazed and this part is feeling a little tight you can always turn the ribs around just to even out the cooking just a little bit to get more heat on this area that has a little more fat on it but to me these things are ready to wrap just get a little bit of apple cider vinegar down first uh just so that as we add the sauce it can kind of move a little bit with a little more liquid so again not too much because the ribs are already Sauced spread the sauce around so it's covering the entire rib and then we'll go meat side down again bring the sides over and again with these ribs we're making sure it's long enough that we can fold both sides and we don't have any air gaps just so we can make sure it's nice and tight so unlike the other ribs that we saw in the green egg that were a lot thicker and felt a lot juicier because these were felt a little bit tighter and feel I feel like they need a little bit more time in this kind of moist environment cooking uh so these will probably go on for 30 to maybe 40 minutes or so again until we do this rib test and again if you see this right now it's very very stiff um and so we definitely want to get it to where the meat is a little more tender those rib tip sections feel a little bit more tender and soft and Squishy we're going to put this back on the Weber and just to help along this side we'll put the rib tip section closest to the fire to get a little more heat uh and get this entire rib nice and tender all right so rib tips are going to be towards the fire so these ribs have been wrapped up for about 30 40 minutes or so like we talked about probably need a little bit more time because they were tighter so we're going to check for the dness okay so as we see this rib right here and we we're again holding it with our two middle fingers giving that flop and it's relaxing a lot more and that's what we want especially with this rib being pretty lean and not not having that much meat on the bones like you want it to be a little bit more relaxed uh and then if we sque the rip tick section right here it's a little bit looser uh and if I push a little bit between the bones I don't want to break through uh the foil right now because it still has all that apple cider vinegar has that sauce probably a little bit of the rendered fat from the from the pork ribs still kind of sitting in there I'm going to rest these just enough so that we can hold these ribs uh without it burning our hands and then these should be ready to cut all right so all these ribs are rested and we have our three different ribs from three different cookers uh so we got our ribs from the Green Egg our ribs from the PK and then from our Weber uh and just to kind of do a quick overview of the cook uh we started them off uncovered we didn't Spritz them we didn't do anything to them for about 3 to four hours or so just allowing that heat and the smoke to get that rib A nice bright red color and to render that fat then we added a nice glaze that was thinned out so we can get a super glossy finish on those ribs and if if they need a little bit more time to tenderize uh we wrapped them in foil and put them back on the heat for about 30 to 40 minutes or so so what we're going to do is we're going to open up all these ribs just so we can see the comparison to all of them uh to see you know if the color is any different to see how tender they are and um yeah then we'll be able to taste them afterwards so when we're opening up these ribs basically taking the same steps but backwards we're going to open up this one flap and the one at the bottom and then the sides and because we have the ribs that are meat side down at this time when we flip them over flip them over like this and kind of rub that rest of that sauce that's on top just so we can get a nice clean rib okay we're open these up and again these are for the PKS a little bit smaller and that section up top feels really nice and tender so again we're going to take these ribs flip them over this is from our Weber the one that kind of took us the longest it felt like it was a little bit leaner than the other two ribs um but at this point they feel nice and tender I think they might have a little bit more chew to them but in terms of the cook it was exactly the same just a little bit more time just cuz it needed it so when I'm looking at all three of these ribs the color looks great and this is exactly what we're looking for even though at this point a lot of the colors is coming from the sauce but even the sauce is getting like the smoke from the ribs is getting the sauce like a really ruby red color which is what we're looking for um but also even though the sauce looks and the ribs look a little wet it's not like we Dow them in sauce it was just a lot of different layers with that glaze and the little extra apple cider vinegar that we added and also coming from like the juices from the ribs and the fat that are starting to kind of Cook Out and like sit in the foil as it rests so we have this right here we got a flop but it's not breaking so if the ribs were breaking at this point then we definitely overcook them but after the rest it has some structure to it which gives me indication that later on when I go to slice this thing it's not going to just completely fall apart and then even when I tip it over all the sauce there's a little bit that's running off but most of it's kind of caked on there and that's what we're looking for and if I'm looking at these ribs right now this rib right here has kind of like the most pullback and I think one of the mistakes that people make or when they're looking for their dness of ribs is they're always looking for the pullback off the bone but a lot of times when that happens most of the time your ribs are overcooked so if it does happen it's kind of like an A+ but don't make that the reason or the thing that you're looking for a lot of times like luckily these are pulled back we have a little pull back on these these not so much but I know that these are these are done again the checks that we're looking for are on that rib tip section that it's nice and rendered and and Squishy that we have that nice flop on the ribs because that's going to give us an idea of the like the toughest rub to cook right in the center with that flop and you clearly see we got great color in all these ribs uh one thing to notice on this Center rib right here uh this has nothing to do with where it was cooked on but because this rib in the center has a little more fat it's obv going to look a little discolored but that's just because a rib has a little more fat and honestly it'll probably taste better because of layer of fat so uh don't always go by ribs on how they look obviously we want them look really good and glossy but the end of the day the most important thing is that we cook them properly all right so we're going to slice these ribs up and uh for cutting ribs I like using a basically a bread knife that's serrated feel like it just helps to kind of cut through the bark just a little bit more and then just because you have a longer blade you have a nice really clean rib on the side now a couple things it's not that hard to c a rib but you know obviously the hardest thing is to avoid bones sometimes so when you cook them we're always looking for where the meat is kind of raised in between the bones and that kind of gives us a guide of where to cut through and we just want to make sure that you know if we happen to hit a rib don't try to just saw through a rib pick your knife up and just kind of you can turn it to a slight angle and it might not be a clean exactly straight up and down cut but at least you'll get all the meat out of the bone and you know what if you hit hit a bone it's not the end of the world just throw the bone away and eat the rest of the meat and if I'm looking at this I can kind of see how the ridges and the the meat that's raised in between the bones it's not exactly straight up and down it's kind of at an angle this way so I'm going to start with this end rib over here then find the space in between the bones and find that Ridge and then again nice clean cut and the hardest part sometimes can be if you overcook the rib tip or maybe during some part of the cook this part got a little bit too hot sometimes the the fat underneath here can kind of cook out a little bit and kind of peel it off so if that does happen just kind of hold it down with your finger uh make sure your fingers are out of the way and take a little short sawing motion to break through it and then once you get through the rest of the rist should be super clean to cut through and as you get towards these last bits sometimes these bones kind of turn in a weird way so if that happens it's not a big deal just try to still follow that same angle so with this rib right here we got that slight smoking on the outside and I like the fact that the entire rib is not super Smokey and isn't pink all way through because I think that might be a little over smoked um but we also have all this juice that's coming out of this rib right here and that just tells us that we cooked it low enough we cooked it at a right temperature where we're running around all that good fat but not cooking out all that delicious flavor that we're looking for so we're going to call in Grant and he's going to taste these ribs with me I want to try I'm here I'm here Joe he man all right go for it these are pretty good that's some pretty color super juicy yeah all the wetness is stick to the ribs not like soupy ribs it's not super soupy it's not super thick it's kind of the right medium where it's not also like syrupy sticky right um what's your RI favorite rib on a rack do you have one are we just going to try this one this is PK or Weber this is the this is the Green Egg Green Egg and then PK and then Weber correct I don't know I just Tred one of these like fat guys over here for it you have a favorite rib uh I like the ribs that have like the smaller pieces of C there I like the little gnarly cuz I got more of the fat too These are nice looking shorts what's up Kim on try cheers brother cheers lighter than it looks I think it's because we didn't put in so much sauce mhm and also it just layering just enough so it holds but it's not like we added sauce after it was cooked and you don't really need it either this to me is like my favorite dness where it comes off the bone mhm but you still have to like bite it and pull it off mhm like when it slides and I like no it's like so perfect so I like we got one kind of Texas style spare rib and you're chasing it down in three different tools I like that yeah and again like the technique I would say the sauce itself is not Texas style at all it's a little bit sweeter me but the I think the amount of pepper kind of balances everything out and I person even in Texas they don't use sauce but I think ribs need a little bit of sauce it needs a little bit of sweetness because of all that like fat that's in there too I think having some sweetness and some Tang it creates a different experience you know they're so good subscribe to our Channel and visit chefsteps.com for more tips recipes guides and tools to help you level up in the kitchen\n"