When I moved from Memphis to San Francisco two and half years ago, I quickly discovered that California BBQ restaurants were woefully inferior to anything I’ve ever had in the South at a restaurant or competition, so I decided to build a Backwoods Smoker and learn how to do it myself.
Luckily I have family and friends on multiple Memphis in May BBQ teams. My sister is in Boar’s Night Out, my late cousin was in 10 Bones BBQ, and a friend of mine is in Pork U. I’m also a Racker, so I’m sure quite a few of my Texas based coworkers will give me some great advice in the years to come.
After several conversations, competitions, online research, a great smoker, and some experimentation, I’ve put together a nice and easy way to make fantastic ribs. Since I make a living writing open source software and believe information should be shared as freely as possible, I’m going to share it all here.
Also, in the spirit of open source, I’ve put this up as a Github Gist. Fork and improve it!
Things you’ll need:
- A high quality smoker. Cheap smokers don’t hold consistent temperatures, and that’s the most important variable in cooking ribs
- Baby back ribs. In San Francisco, I’ve found Golden Gate Meat Company to be the best butcher around. Wherever you live, try to find the best meat source you can.
- A box or bag of apple wood chips. Apple tastes better than hickory or mesquite, and you don’t have to worry as much about over-smoking your meat. I hear pecan wood is also good, but it’s not readily available in California, so I’ve had no experience with it.
- Saran wrap
- Toothpicks
- A spray bottle
- Apple juice
- Charcoal. I prefer natural lump charcoal.
- A chimney to light your charcoal and a newspaper. Lighter fluid is gross and smells bad. Use the newspaper!
- Dry rub and sauce. I prefer Willingham’s Original rub and Sweet and Sassy sauce. It’s so good that I haven’t bothered taking the time to learn how to make my own yet.
- A large disposable casserole dish. (This isn’t required, but it’s worth it to simplify cleanup when you’re done.)
- Brown sugar
How To Do It
The night before you’re smoking ribs, take the ribs and liberally apply your dry rub to all sides of your baby back slabs. Try your best to entirely cover the entire surface. Don’t rub it in, though, just cover it. Wrap each slab in Saran Wrap and put it in your disposable casserole dish. When you’ve rubbed all of your slabs, put the dish in the fridge. If you didn’t buy a casserole dish, use the lowest shelf in your fridge, because juices are going to drip all over the place.
Go to sleep.
When you wake up, take your ribs out of the fridge and place them on the counter.
Start heating up your smoker. I light charcoal in the chimney and boil water to put in the water pan. You don’t have to boil the water, but it will save a little time. Also, don’t completely fill your water pan, because you may want to use some cold water later to bring the temperature down if your smoker starts getting hotter than you want it to.
Unwrap your ribs and apply another coat of dry rub the same way you did the night before.
Now, take your spray bottle and fill it halfway with water, and then fill the rest of it with apple juice.
Ribs taste best when you cook them between 200 and 225 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours. Keep in mind, however, that your ribs will be a little cold when you put them in the smoker, so get your smoker a little bit hotter than that so that you reach your target temp quickly when you put the ribs in the smoker. If I’m cooking 6-8 slabs, for example, I get the smoker to about 240-250 before putting the ribs in.
Once you have the ribs in the smoker, it’s time to apply smoke. Smoke works best at the very beginning of the cook. After a couple of hours, the surface of the ribs will harden a little and smoke will not penetrate the meat as well.
Throw a handful of wood chips in your firebox and enjoy the smell. When you see less smoke coming out of your smoker, add another handful. Keep an eye on your smoker temperature, because the wood will heat it up some. If it starts to get too high, close the vents on your smoker or add some cold water to the water pan. Don’t open the chamber too much, though, because your temperature will vary too much.
After about an hour, stop adding wood. If you smoke the entire time, your ribs will have a bitter ashy taste.
Now that you’ve been smoking for an hour, open your cooking chamber and spray the ribs with your apple juice + water combo. This helps the meat from drying out and also makes for a nice bark. You should spray your ribs every hour.
For the last hour or two, you can get a nice subtle sweetness to the bark by sprinkling brown sugar over the top of your slabs. The brown sugar will melt and caramelize. Trust me, it’s good!
For the last 30 minutes, mop your sauce over the top of the slabs.
Some people like to wrap ribs in foil at the end with apple juice to add a little moisture. I’ve found this step to be unnecessary and too labor intensive, so I don’t do it. Some people also like to put the ribs on a hot grill for about five minutes at the end, but I find that step also unnecessary. But you might as well try it out and see how it works for you.
My total cooking time tends to be between 5 and 6 hours. Your mileage may vary, but I find the easiest way to test without breaking off pieces is to do a toothpick test. It’s basically the same technique people use when baking cakes. Stick a toothpick in the cake, and if it comes out clean, the cake is done. For ribs, it’s a little different. Take the toothpick and place it in the ribs from the side between two bones, and pay attention to the resistance. If you can insert the toothpick with little to no resistance, your ribs are ready to eat. If it’s stiff, keep cooking. If you’re paranoid after that, take a rib off and see how it tastes!
Enjoy!
