Whole Smoked Ribs

Over the weekend I picked up some spare ribs and I was too lazy to cut them into St.Louis style so I decided to just cook them whole. The way I did it was just like how they cook ribs in a bbq restaurant. The old fashioned way. Let me show you how it's done.

The first thing you need to do is remove the membrane. It's a tough part of the ribs that you don't need and all you need to use is a butter knife, and get it under the membrane and lift it up slightly, so you can get your finger under it and pull it off. Using a paper towel will give you get a better grip.

You don't need to trim it up (cut some of the fat off or the top of the ribs). That's more of a competition thing.

Next you need to add some bbq rub. You can use any rub you like but this rack I used Kosmos Q Dirty Bird and some SPG. You don't need to give it a heavy coat just a light coat on both sides so it will give it that mahogany color and savory flavor.

Go ahead and leave the ribs out and let the rub sink into the meat while you get the grill set up.

Set your grill up for indirect cooking at 250 degree temp. Since ribs take 3-4 hours to cook at this temp, I used the minion method, which is where you take a charcoal chimney full of unlit coals, or 100 coals and place them in the grill. Next you take a small amount of hot coals and place them on top. This will give you a 3,4 or 5 hour long cook so you don't have to keep opening up the grill and adding more coals to the fire. Letting out all the heat in the process.

Next I added a few lumps of hickory wood so I can get some smoke on the ribs. They use the same wood to smoke the ribs you order at a restaurant.

Place the ribs opposite the hot coals and you may not need to cut then in half like it did. Your grill might be big enough to fit the whole ribs in without them getting to close to the fire.

So at this point, close the lid and walk away. Let the ribs cook and the smoke roll on them. One thing I learned in bbq, if you're lookin you aint cookin, But halfway through go ahead and check on the ribs and temperature so you don't over cook the ribs. Again depending on your grills temperature will determine when the ribs will be done.

Fully cooked pork is done when the internal temperature is at 160 degrees. Another way to till when ribs are done is, when you pick them up the will start to break on you. And the meat will start to pull back from the bones. That's what you need to look for in ribs. Now let the ribs sit for 5-10 minutes and slice them up.

These ribs came out fantastic with the bbq rub and the hickory smoke and that's all you needed for ribs like these.

Thank you for for checking out this blog recipe and I hope it inspires many of you to get out and bbq with friend and family.