Have you ever tried to make barbecue ribs like the ones that you get at a real barbecue joint, and instead ended up with a plate-full of discharged out tough bones with hardly any good ateen on em? You expected fall of the bones tasty goodness, and instead ended up with a broken heart. Well then, here are five easy tips to follow so you will get the barbecue results you seek when making pork spare-ribs.
- You need to smoke your ribs with a barbecue smoker. A barbecue smoker allows you to cook with indirect heat, which is necessary to get that juicy fall off the bone tenderness. Also, you need a smoker so that your ribs get that great smokey taste. You can purchase a smoker at on-line or at almost any of the big box home improvement stores. Even WalMart has decent smokers!
- You need to cook the ribs "Low and Slow." This means to cook them at a low temperature (around 235 to 250 degrees) for a long time, about three to five hours.
- You need to spice your ribs prior to cooking / smoking with a barbecue rub. A barbecue rub is a spice mixture that is rubbed onto the meat to add flavor during cooking. There are about as many different recipes for barbecue rubs as there are barbecue pit masters. Find one you like, or create your own.
- Barbecue Sauce. A sauce is generally applied to ribs to give them that glazed sweet / spicy taste. Like a rub, there are as many different sauce recipes as there are barbecue chefs. Find one you like in a cookbook, or online, or ask your neighbor. You can even use one of the packaged sauces from the grocery store right out of the bottle or doctored up!
- Wait for the very end of the cooking process before applying the sauce. Barbecue sauce usually contains a lot of sugar, which will burn easily. Applying the sauce at the very end will limit the chance that you will be serving charred bones instead of juicy meat.