The St. Louis style spare ribs in this recipe are cut into individual pieces before they are cooked. By cutting the ribs beforehand, you get more seasoning and more smoke on more surface area and you don't have to worry about slicing them before serving.
Course Entree, Main
Cuisine Barbecue
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 4 hourshours40 minutesminutes
Total Time 5 hourshours10 minutesminutes
Ingredients
1or more racks of St. Louis style spare ribs
Jeff's original sauce
Jeff's original rub
Large foil panfor overnight dry rub brining
Instructions
Flip the ribs to bone side up, use a knife, spoon or just your finger to start pulling up on that plastic-like membrane that covers the bones.
Tip: use a paper towel or catfish pliers for better grip.
Make sure the ribs are bone side up so you can see the bones better and slice off the first bone to your left, against the bone.
Now slice as close against the third bone from left as you can leaving maximum meat on the bone in the center
Doing it this way, you get a bone in the center with maximum meat on both sides of the bone.
Continue these same cuts until you end up with about 6 center ribs with lots of meat on both sides.
You'll end up with about 7 bone fragments with very little meat on them. Those can be saved for a soup, pot of beans, etc.
Lay the extra wide ribs down in a foil pan–
Apply Jeff's barbecue sauce to the top, sides and bottom of each one.
Now apply ample amounts of Jeff's original rub on all sides.. pat it in a little to make it stay before you flip them over.
Place the pan of ribs in the fridge for at least 4 hours but overnight is MUCH better.
Set up your smoker for cooking at 225°F (107°C) using indirect heat. If your smoker uses a water pan, fill it up.
I used pecan but any smoking wood that you have will work great.
Once your smoker is preheated and ready to cook, get the ribs in there.
Place the pan of ribs into the smoker or you can place them directly onto the grates if you prefer.
Let them cook for about 3 hours first to form a really good crust. Check them at this point and if they look like the rub on the top is nice and dry, feel free to spritz them with some apple juice, Pepsi, whatever you have. Something with a little sugar in it is best.
At hour 4, it's time to put some Jeff's barbecue sauce on them to create a glaze.
Coat them good and spread it out over the top and sides.
Now crank up the heat to 425°F (218°C) to get a good finish on them. If you can't go that hot, just go as hot as you can and that will work.
Tip: Another option is to bring them in at this point and put them into the oven preheated to 425°F (218°C).
At 425°F, it took mine an additional 40 minutes to be get the color I wanted on the ribs and to get some char on the sauce.