Recipes

For an exquisite dinner/lunch, nothing beats the legendary Smokey and juicy baby rips racked together in a serving plate. Ribs are perfect in every way simply because of the taste and smell they produce when you put them on your favorite grill. During the summers, this smell and taste is even more enjoyable with your friends or family.

But not everyone can get the best taste, texture and smell of the baby back ribs. Only experts know the secret to the perfectly grilled and smoked ribs.

And today we are going to share some expert tips on how to smoke baby back ribs that taste better than big name restaurants. All you need is a smoker or a grill and a little patience.

Read How To Season A Brisket

Smoking baby back ribs is a popular way to cook them because it imparts a rich, smoky flavor and results in tender, juicy meat. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to smoke baby back ribs:

Ingredients:

• 2 racks of baby back ribs
• Dry rub seasoning
• BBQ sauce

Equipment:

• Smoker (electric, charcoal or gas)
• Wood chips (hickory, apple, or mesquite)

Instructions:

• Remove the silver membrane from the back of the ribs. This will make the ribs more tender and allow the rub and smoke to penetrate better.
• Season the ribs with dry rub seasoning, covering both sides generously. You can use a pre made seasoning blend or make your own using salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and any other desired spices.
• Let the ribs sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to allow the seasoning to penetrate the meat.
• While the ribs are resting, preheat your smoker to 225°F. Add your preferred wood chips to the smoker box or directly onto the coals.
• Place the ribs on the smoker, bone side down. Close the lid and let them smoke for 3 hours.
• After 3 hours, wrap the ribs tightly in aluminum foil. This will help to keep them moist and tender.
• Place the wrapped ribs back in the smoker and continue cooking for another 2-3 hours or until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 195°F.
• Remove the ribs from the smoker and let them rest for 10-15 minutes before slicing.
• Brush the ribs with BBQ sauce and serve hot.

Tips:

• Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the ribs.
• You can adjust the cooking time and temperature depending on the type and size of your smoker and the thickness of the ribs.
• Experiment with different wood chips to achieve different flavors.

Smoke Baby Back Ribs Secret Rules:

First of all, remove the underbelly membrane – This is extremely important and needs to be done before you do anything else with the ribs. The underbelly membrane doesn’t allow the smoke to penetrate the meat effectively on the bottom sides. Also if you don’t take down the membrane, it will likely get stuck in your teeth while eating.

Don’t use a sauce – Instead of using a sauce, something we all love doing, use rub. To bring out the ultimate crust, you need a savory rub with plenty of flavor added. If you are aiming for a sweet meal, add granulated white sugar instead of usually used brown sugar. White sugar gets caramelized better and hence produces a great crust in return.

Do not open the smoker when your ribs are being cooked – No matter what happens, do not open the door of your smoker once you set the ribs inside. On an average, baby back ribs take around 3 hours to cook properly. Set this time aside and let it cook completely without changing temperatures or opening the door.

Do not boil the ribs – One of the biggest mistakes people make when smoking ribs is that they boil the ribs before putting inside a smoker. This makes them dry and tender. If you want a juicy stack of ribs, do not boil them.

Have patience – Like I said in the beginning, you need a lot of patience when smoking meat. With baby back ribs, you need to set them in the smoker for at least 3 hours. During this time do not open the door and keep the temperature maintained at 225 degrees.

If you are short on time, you can use an oven back and try to bake them instead. But remember, this will not result in a perfect stack of baby back ribs. With this technique, it will take less than an hour for the ribs to become fully cooked with plenty of flavor that is still enjoyable.

You can use sauce – If you really can’t survive without using sauce, you can use it but it is not required. Sauce will definitely produce good results but not as good as with the savory rub.

Anyone can easily learn how to smoke baby back ribs, but to bring out an ultimate combination of succulent and crispy crust baby back ribs, you need to follow certain rules.

Achieving a perfect pork butt recipe partly depends on the quality of the raw product. If you will make a smoked pork butt recipe, the first thing to consider is to select a fresh product and not the frozen one.

It can be challenging when buying a perfect butt, but the ideal should be the one that has large money muscle on the front. It is located at the end of the round bone. When cooked properly, it’s tender enough that can be sliced with just a sharp knife.

You can also choose a pork butt having a big horn muscle. It is equally tender as the money muscle not to mention the savory flavor it has.

How to Smoke a Pork Butt Roast

Image source: T-ROY COOKS

After finding the perfect pork butt, the next thing to do is to make a rub that you can apply or coat into the butt. Sprinkle the rub onto the meat and gently massage it so that the flavor of the rub will stick to the meat.

Obviously, each individual has its own smoking technique. If you will smoke pork butts, you must know the right temperature.

You should also know the proper tenderization process. Wrapping the butt in an aluminum foil to retain the moisture. Before wrapping, you can apply the baste and the dry rub. Wrap it tight and put the butt back on the smoker.

When checking if the meat is done, you should not open the door of the smoker constantly. Instead, you can use a digital thermometer. Likewise, you won’t be able to achieve the right tenderness of the butt if you’ll keep on opening the smoker.

Aside from the temperature, the appearance of the smoked pork butt is also important. To obtain a mahogany look of the butt, you can apply a final glaze. Unwrap the foil after removing the butt from the holding cooler and apply the glaze.

You can use a barbecue sauce that is sweet and spicy or whatever sauce you may like. You can also mix the juice drippings on the pan to give an extra zest of flavor.

After applying the glaze, place the butt back to the smoker for an hour at 245 degrees to caramelize the bark.

Smoked Pork Butt Temperature

Image source: T-ROY COOKS

Many BBQ enthusiasts say that by simple looking at the smoked pork, they can tell if it’s done. But, this is not true all the time, but rather may lead to disappointment.

Using a digital meat thermometer will save you from the struggle, thus maintain the required temperature when smoking a pork butt.

When smoking a pork butt, the required temperature of the smoker is 240°F. The ideal time to smoke is about 1.5 hours per pound and the finished temperature should be 200°F.

Read: How To Smoke A Pork Lion

It is necessary to use a digital meat temperature to avoid opening the door of the smoker. The thermometer will help you monitor the internal temperature throughout the cooking process.

Some smokers come with digital meat thermometer that stop automatically once the desired meat temperature is reached and switch to warming mode.

If you want to try a smoked pork butt, you can consider this recipe.

Smoked Pork Butt

For the marinade you’ll need the following ingredients:

• 1 cup corn oil
• 2 cups cider vinegar
• ¼ cup rock salt
• 1 can pineapple juice
• 1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/8 cup paprika
• 1/8 cup white pepper

For the rub:

• ½ cup non-iodized salt
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup paprika
• 1/3 cup black pepper
• 1 tbsp. each of the following; onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, hickory salt, celery salt, ground cumin, ground sage
• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

For the glue:

• 1 tbsp. honey
• 2 tbsp. yellow mustard

Direction of smoking:

After preparing the marinade, rub and the glue, you can start injecting the pork butt with a little amount of marinade in different parts of the butt.

Place the pork butt in a resealable plastic bag and let it set for 8 hours inside the refrigerator.

To keep the rub stick, you can apply a coat of glue and sprinkle the rub generously into the meat.

Prepare the smoker and set the temperature to 250°F and add the hickory and apple wood chips into the charcoal.

Place the pork inside the smoker. Make sure not to over smoke the pork. After a couple of hours, you can apply the baste and place again the pork into the smoker and smoke for one more hour. Repeat the basting for 3 times.

After which, you can remove the pork out of the smoker and wrap it with aluminum foil and return it again to the smoker.

You can remove the pork from the smoker once it reached 200°F and let it stand for 20 minutes before pulling.

The popular pulled pork is an excellent example of tailgating in BBQ parties based in home or through the weekend dinners. It usually requires a special cooking technique known as slow cooking.

This is why it requires you to have a slow cooker or a charcoal grill, gas grill or a smoker. But the best way to smoke pulled poke is without any doubt through an electric smoker specially with Masterbuilt 40 Electric Smoker.

But before you start smoking your pulled pork in an electric smoker, you need to decide on the kind of wood chips you’ll be using. The basic idea is to select wood chips that best compliment the natural Smokey flavors of this tasty meat.

Here is a little guidance when it comes to selecting the right chips to smoke pulled pork:

Apple wood chips – Apple wood is naturally fruity and mild in nature. In order to get the apple flavor into your pulled pork, you are going to need plenty of cooking hours.

Maple – these wood chips are rather mild in flavor than the rest of chips available in the market. It takes time to burn but it is also the sweetest wood chips from all other wood chips available.

Hickory – This hard wood is an excellent choice because it has a very strong and sweet taste that tastes a lot like bacon, hence it is often one of the best choices when you are smoking pork. The wood itself burns slow and strong and has a great combination factor with other wood chips. For example, you can mix it with maple and apple to get a distinct new taste. Hickory wood chips are also excellent when it comes to smoking large cuts of any kind of meat. They work best with pulled pork.

Pecan – If you want a nutty, fruity and rich flavor to compliment your pulled pork, then these wood chips are great to go for. They burn slow and cool that makes them a great combination to add with mesquite or hickory if you prefer more of a bacon taste.

Mesquite – this hard wood has a very dense smoke and gives you a very good burned flavor. It burns super fast and hot and produces a lot of smoke. It is best used with other wood chips like pecan to enhance the basic smoke taste into something very new and flavorful.

How to Smoked Pulled Pork In An Electric Smoker

Ingredients

• 5-8 lbs pork shoulder or butt

For brine

• ¾ cup molasses
• 2 quarts water
• 12 ounces salt (pickling)

For the Rub

• 1 tsp fennel
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp onion powder

Method

1. Let pork rest into brine for about 8-12 hours. Pork must be completely submerged.
2. Dry the meat down. Put on the rub on meat making sure it is fully covered.
3. Add desired wood chips to electric smoker and start preheating at 225 F.
4. Smoke the meat for 10-12 hours at 190-200 F.
5. Let the meat rest for at least an hour before serving.

Resource:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-make-perfect-pulled-pork
http://www.livestrong.com/article/543160-the-nutrition-of-pulled-pork-vs-chicken/