Smoked BBQ Spare Ribs

[sandmannd]

I had a hankering for some good old ribs. The last time I smoked some I failed miserably but that wasn't to hold me back from trying it again. With the help of the internet and talking to BigWade, I was determined to make these great.

I thawed out my ribs on Thursday. That night I trimmed them down and put a little Olive Oil on them. After that I used some Famous Dave's rib rub and gave them a complete rubdown. They were then wrapped and placed in the fridge for Friday's dinner.

Friday morning came. I took the ribs out of the fridge and let them rise to room temperature for about a half hour or so. In the meantime I got to soaking my wood. I didn't have any hickory so I used apple. I know hickory or mesquite would have been better but went with what I had. With the chips soaking and ribs warming up and fired up the smoke. I added my chips to the smoker, just a small amount at first and let it sit. Once it hit 225 degrees I put the ribs in.

I have a hard time maintaining the temp in my smoker, probably because it's not a pricey one. Talking to Wade I turned the gas on the tank down to next to nothing and that helped keep it under 300 degrees for the most part. Every half hour I would put about 4 ounces of chips in and open the door for a couple of minutes to cool it inside.

Once the ribs had smoked for 3 hours I removed them and double wrapped them in tinfoil. I added some more wood chips and placed them back in the smoker for two more hours. I again added chips every half hour or so in small amounts. This gives a constant smoke but not an over load of it. Once that time was up I took the ribs out of the smoker and slathered them in BBQ sauce. Famous Dave's Rich and Sassy is the family favorite so it received the call. Once slathered it was back in the smoker, but not before I had a little sample and man were they gooooooooood!

They were on the smoker for about another 20 minutes. In the meantime the side dishes of potatoes and corn were prepared. The grill was also warmed up during this time. After the 20 minutes I removed them from the smoker and placed on the top rack of the grill to caramelize the sauce.

They weren't on the grill long, maybe 15 minutes. I took them off and quickly wrapped them in one layer of tinfoil. I took them in the house and let them rest while the table was set. We opened them up and cut into the most tender ribs I have ever seen. I cut them into single bone ribs and put them on a platter for our feast. We all sat down do an incredible meal. We all figured these had been the best ribs we had ever had. I guess I'm going to be doing more smoked meats around the house as these went over so well.

[dakids]

Congrats on the ribs.  With my 4 kids it was very expensive to do enough ribs for everyone.  My kids really like smoked chicken thighs.  Very juice and also cheap.  We usually need 5 pounds of thiighs for everyone to get enough and for me to have a few left over for lunch the next day.