It's been four years since I've made ribs at home. Once I saw this slab on sale, I decided to rectify that. Thes package described these as St. Louis-cut, Kansas City-seasoned. I had never used pre-seasoned ribs, but I figured, why not?
I still added two different dry rubs, half and half, but the color was already there.
This is how they looked coming out of the package:
When I went back through the HC archives, I noticed something strange. Noting a desire for moist heat, I poured an inch of water in the pan, touching the meat. That didn't seem right to the Dave in 2014. Instead I made a foil boat for the meat, and put an inch of water outside the foil. Then another piece of foil covering the entire thing.
Here's how it looked after 6 hours of 200 degrees F.
Then I took the top foil off, added sauce lengthwise to create 4 quadrants of flavor options (two rubs x sauce or no sauce) and cooked for another 30 minutes. Total cooking time 6.5 hours. These seemed really meaty, so I wanted to make sure they were cooked long enough at low and slow to be tender. Spoiler alert: my favorite quadrant was Gates rub with sauce.
Here's they looked, ready to eat:
About the six hours at 200 thing. That's how I've always done it. I decided to look online to see how others are doing it. Most are cooking for only 2.5 or 3 hours, anywhere from 250 to 350 F.
Then I was curious, was there a way to get smoke flavor in the oven?
I found this. Looks promising. And he's doing his for 3 hours at 250. It's low, but not quite slow. I wonder how tender they are.
Those look good. I'm skeptical about trying to smoke in the oven...I feel like it'll end up making the oven too smoky, or producing a flavor that's too subtle.
ReplyDeleteI had a lot of success with a crock pot recipe similar to this, but with more alternating between the crock pot and broiler towards the end which resulted in some rib perfection, tender inside with meat falling off the bone, and crispy caramelized outside.
http://www.thestayathomechef.com/2013/04/the-secret-to-crockpot-ribs.html
It all sounds good, both the column and the comment, but I won't eat ribs from anywhere but 17th Street. When I used to order from other places, I was always disappointed. However, when I get brisket, burnt ends, or pulled pork, I'll still be happy.
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