Wet ribs, dry ribs, sauce on the side, no sauce, smoke, foiled? There are so many ways of doing ribs and they’re all right. These ribs are cooked using the 3,2,1 method and BBQ sauce added at the end of the cook.
What’s the 3,2,1 method you ask? Well it’s cooking the ribs for 3 hours unwrapped, 2 hours wrapped and then the final hour unwrapped again. Yes we’re going to cook these for 6 hours, low and slow. And yes it really is worth doing.
The ribs are rubbed first before they are cooked. Most people also like to remove the membrane on the back of the ribs before cooking them, I’m not really bothered to be honest, sometimes it keeps them together nicely. It’s also a real faff to get off. The benefit to doing it is your rub and smoke can penetrate from the bottom more easily.
There are two rubs below, either of them work great. They just have slightly different flavours so work out which you like best.
Rub #1 Ingredients - Standard rub
- 4 tsp Maldon Salt
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp ground white pepper
- 2 tsp golden sugar
- 1 cup apple juice
- 2 racks of ribs
Run #2 Ingredients - Rich rub
- 10g fennel seeds - toasted
- 1 tsp cumin seeds - toasted
- 1 tsp coriander seeds - toasted
- 1 tsp black peppercorns - toasted
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 10 garlic powder
- 100g soft brown sugar
- 50g granulated sugar
- 30g smoked paprika
- 100g table salt
- 1 tsp chili powder
Method
- Make up the rub of your choice. If you’re making rub #2 then toast the seeds, let them cool then crush them. Then combine all the ingredients.
- Coat the ribs with your rub, you won’t use all of the rub, just enough to cover each side.
- Light your EGG and warm it up.
- Soak some wood chips and or chunks in water for 15 mins. Apple or hickory work well.
- Add a good handful of chips or several chunks to your EGG, some in the middle, some further out across the charcoal.
- Use your plate setter feet up with the stainless steel grid resting on the legs.
- Add your ribs. If you’re cooking a lot then use a V-rack to hold them vertically.
- Set your EGG to 110C, normally this is draft door open 1/2 cm and top vent with the tiniest of cracks.
- Smoke for 3 hours.
- Take your ribs off, spray with apple juice and then wrap in foil.
- Cook for another 2 hours at 110C.
- Unwrap your ribs and paint with some BBQ sauce. (BBQ Sauce Recipe)
- Put back on the EGG and cook for 1 hour, painting your ribs ever 15 mins with sauce.
- Take your ribs off the BBQ, wrap in foil and rest for 15 minutes.
- Serve with coleslaw and even more BBQ sauce.
The meat should pull away from the bone easily. Some people wrap their ribs for the whole cook, effectively steaming them and the bones just fall out, I prefer a little bite though.
I think you’ll like these ribs.
What are your tips and techniques?
This recipe is also featured on the Big Green Egg website.