Saturday, March 21, 2009

Saturday Ribtacular part 1

Alexis loves me, she really does. How do I know? She brought home 3 racks of spare ribs for me to cook. Wait....maybe she just loves ribs? I feel so used;)

Actually, I'm not the cook today. Trevor (9 y/o) asked to be the pitmaster today and he wanted to use his smoker instead of my Big Green Egg. It's his first time smoking ribs.

I trimmed the ribs St. Louis style. I'm not ready to have him do the butchering. We save the trimmings, smoke them too and chop them up into baked beans...mmmmmmm.Trevor wanted to do a taste test on the ribs, so today's challengers are Billy Bones Competition Rub (my favorite), Grendeddy Dave's Hawg Rub, and Charlie Vergo's Rendezvous seasoning.Trevor rubbed two ribs with dry rub. The Rendezvous seasoning doesn't go on until the end, which is fundamentally weird to me.We both split the hickory for the smoker. I trimmed off the bark because it in my opinion it gives funky smoke. Some BBQ'rs do, some don't. It's a personal preference thing. For coal, I'm not actually using lump. Instead we're trying the new Kingsford Briquettes (never in an Egg) that contain hickory. It's my first time so I'll let you know what I think but they are putting off a nice smoke.The ribs went on an hour ago at noon. That black lab is Sofa. We call her our "not our dog". She lives up the hill at the Penrose Horse Farm. She started visiting us about 4 years ago, every time that we were BBQing. He's using the 3-2-1 method so the schedule is
noon: 3 hours at 225-250f
3pm: wrap ribs in foil and cook another 2 hours.
5pm: unwrap ribs, finish up for 1 more hour
6pm: pull the ribs off, rest, then devour.