Lip Smackin', Finger Lickin', Mouth Waterin' BBQ Ribs

We love ribs! Those 3 little words say it all. Every chance we get, we BBQ up some tasty ribs. In this recipe is my husbands signature BBQ rub, and the directions to get some of the best ribs out there ready on your dinner plate. If you have access to a smoker (which we do sometimes as we have an electric smoker and smoker box), you can smoke these with the rub on for about 2 hours before cooking. This helps to tenderize the meat and get flavors to smash together. The wood that we use are alder chunks, but you can use any flavor wood you want. Other flavors that we like are apple, cherry, hickory, mesquite (great for chicken), and cedar (great for fish).

Rich's Signature BBQ Rub

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup raw sugar or white sugar (using raw sugar makes it not too sweet)
1/2 cup coarse salt
1/4 cup paprika
2 Tbsp seasoned salt
2 Tbsp dry mustard
2 Tbsp freshly ground pepper
1 Tbsp chili powder (not a blend)
1 tsp dry parsley flakes
1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp pepper flakes (if you like a little spicy)
1/2 tsp dried basil

Mix together and store in airtight container.

For the ribs: We use a beef rib whenever we can, yeah there is more bone to deal with but if you do this just right, the meat will just fall off the bone. You can also use pork ribs and they taste good too. Note: Remember with pork ribs you need to make sure the internal temperature is 160 degrees or above or else you can get food poisoning from undercooked meat.

Rub your ribs as a slab or you can cut the slab up into individual ribs and rub that way also. We always keep the slab intact, but you have to strip the membranes off the back so they do not become tough and chewy. To do this just take a knife and get it started and then just pull it off until the ribs are very pliable (meaning you can bend the slab in half then you know all the membranes are off because the slab is not very pliable with the membranes intact. It just looks like a thin white skin on the underside of the ribs. The rib rub will not penetrate the membrane so do your best to get it off). Rub liberally with BBQ rub and put in the refrigerator for minimum 8 hours, but 24-48 hours is best for optimum flavor.

If you are going to smoke the ribs, put them in the smoker with your wood chips and turn it on, smoke for about 2-3 hours, changing chips at least twice when they burn down. You can tell you need more chips when the smoker stops showing visible smoke. If you have a charcoal grill, you can get a smoker box and smoke them as you cook them, that works well also. Just get a smoker box (take a look at this picture to know what you need to get if you are not sure about what a smoker box looks like: Smoker Box Picture ) and you put the chips in there and put it on the BBQ rack in the center and place ribs around the smoker box so all the ribs get evenly smoked while cooking.

After you smoke them, or if you are skipping the smoking; turn on the BBQ grill on low and let it heat first. Place ribs on rack and cook it very low heat farthest away from the BBQ burner if you are using a gas grill. Cook it about 4 hours or until done, some grills cook at different pace so check them frequently.

If you like wet ribs, put on your sauce in the last 30 minutes of cooking so it carmelizes on the ribs. Here is the link to the sauce that we make and enjoy frequently: Sweet and Smoky BBQ Sauce Recipe. IF you like dry ribs, just skip the saucing and have some on the table just in case you like a little dipping sauce.

**Note: if you like corn on the cob on the grill: Husk and corn making sure you get the threads off as best you can, butter your corn (we use a honey butter consisting of butter and honey until a spreadable consistency), wrap your corn in foil and place on grill rack with ribs in the last 40 minutes of cooking to get some great BBQ corn to go with those ribs**

Are you hungry yet? I thought so, now go and BBQ up some ribs and corn!