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Smoked Beef Ribs

June 14, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, J. tried smoking a brisket on our gas grill for the first time. He’s always been good at grilling in general, but the smoking was a first-time experiment that turned out deliciously. And of course, our minds started turning over all the other wonderful foods we could hit with some smoke. I knew I wanted him to try beef ribs right away. He usually makes them, par-boiled and then grilled, once a summer and they’re delicious. I knew they’d be even better smoked.

For us, the first step in trying out a new meat recipe is usually a convoluted conversation with our kosher butcher, where I ask for something J. read about in totally non-kosher terms, and the butcher tries to figure out which kosher cut of the animal I’m blathering on about. For instance, I asked for a slab of long beef ribs. I preemptively said “long” because I have had extensive conversations with him about long ribs, short ribs, and flanken. Now that I know what terms he wants to hear from me, I can order short ribs without a problem! But the full slab request, well, that threw a wrench into the process. Ultimately, it seems what I wanted was a full square of uncut flanken, and I did indeed get what we needed — a slab of beef ribs. It was about 6.5 lbs. before J. started trimming it (he had to remove the membrane along the back of the ribs himself).

On Friday night, J. rinsed and trimmed the meat, and then coated it with Cow Lick steak rub from Dizzy Pig BBQ. (I’ve got a whole post on these rubs coming… another time.) The ribs were wrapped and put in the fridge overnight. You can soak your hickory chips in water overnight, too, if you’d like.

You want indirect heat when you’re smoking, so on a gas grill the food should go on one side (which you don’t turn on) and the wood chips go on the other side where there is direct heat. Here’s a broad overview of the smoking technique (and remember we’re still learning ourselves): Turn one side of the grill on high, and put the wet chips in a heat-proof dish on that side. Close the grill and keep it going on high until the chips start smoking. Then turn the heat down until you get to about 225° F — that’s your optimal smoking temperature. Once you’ve hit 225, you can put the meat on grill. Remember, it goes on the side where your chips aren’t. You want to keep an eye on both the smoke and heat throughout the day, keeping the heat as constant as possible and replacing the chips as needed when the smoke gets low. J. estimates he checked the temp and added hickory chips almost every half hour.

These ribs smoked for 9 hours. Really. They probably didn’t need quite that long, but they had that beautiful, dusky pink hue of smoked beef, and a fantastic, spicy crust. Overall they were really succulent and filling. The tip of the ribs (the thinnest part) was a bit dried out, so J. said he’d wrap it in foil earlier in the cooking process to protect it next time.

We served the ribs with Broccoli Rabe & Potato Salad and Sesame Radish Salad. And now my rib craving is satisfied until next summer.

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Filed under: Beef,J. Cooks

Tags: BBQ, Broccoli Rabe, Broccoli Rabe Potato Salad, cooking, Cow Lick, Dizzy Pig, food, recipe, spicy, whole