Listen to the pig

Oink.

It's been a long time coming, but things are getting better when it comes to my pork ribs. After pondering this problem for a while, and trying to think like the pig, I'm slowing navigating the maze of rib cookery. I'm ashamed to admit it, but one of my mistakes was a sense of entitlement, that somehow the ribs deserved as much use of the smoker as a brisket or a pork shoulder. This comes from watching too much cspan.

A big cut of meat can handle error. If you start out too hot or too cold you can adjust for it. Ribs are a little piece of meat on a big bone and you must not overcook. 6-8 hours is plenty, not the 12 or so for a shoulder. I've cut way back on the rub. Before, I was using a lot of brown sugar, which would only carmelize and blacken if left in the smoker too long. The result was a few nice specimens but mainly hard blackened sticks of bone that only a dog would tackle. I've found a light rub of salt, pepper, paprika, a little garlic powder, works fine. Heck, just salt and pepper works alright.

Listen to the pig, brother, listen to the pig. The pig has been talkin to me this year and oinkin that less is more when it comes to a dry rub. My stimulus package, well meaning as it was, was too much. I went overboard! I was thinkin about what looked good at the beginning, going into the smoker, rather than what worked coming out. This made sense to me, but not the pig. It took a while, but I finally got it. There's an analogy here to real life but this is more important.

Last weekend I kept them ribs in the smoker about 6 hours at 200-225. I laid a sheet of tin foil over them, not sealed, just a gentle blanket. Like the way you set a newspaper on your head when crossing the street in the rain. I thought this would help capture the smoke flavor without a lot of smoke buildup on the meat. It worked well.

When I took them off I wrapped them in foil with a light mix of apple juice, mustard, a little ketchup. Just enough to get a little nice steam going later. Let them set for a couple of hours, then put them back in the smoker, still wrapped in the foil for two more hours. Not perfect but a lot better than what I was turning out in the past. One of the toughest things about smokin ribs is the multiple pieces to the puzzle. There can be loads of unintended consequences. When I've messed up a batch I know it right away, but usually spend a half day trying to convince myself that "this isn't that bad". Once I come to my senses, figuring our why it's bad can take a while.