I don't advocate sauce. But if you do put it on, don't put it on until the last hour. That's plenty of time, and it won't inhibit the smoke flavor.
I'm probably going to go get a vacio sandwich in a few minutes, but in the meantime I've been reading over various smoking threads and it's been doing nothing but making my mouth water.
so after father's day became a bust, I finally did them this weekend. After all of my miserable failures at smoking ribs... they were wonderful and now I think that they are going to be a regular in my smoking reportoire
Excellent how to. Thanks. I'm smoking six racks on a smallish smoker. I haven't quite decided yet to pop em in the oven. I do that for brisket though. It is wet and somewhat cold and the smoker has had trouble retaining heat, but no lower than 200 and no higher than 250 F so far. I'm using mesquite. My rub in about equal proportions eyeballing it: garlic salt, chili powder, paprika and pepper.
Add Brown Sugar to your rub and give the ribs a good char for about 15 minutes to start things,THEN follow the rest of the instructions. The sugar will melt and fuse the rub into the meat.
I'm not a fan of sugar in rubs either, but I suppose there are as many ways to BBQ as there are people who do it. Today is my wife's birthday and I've already had the brisket on for almost 3 hours, and it will be smoked MY way. The ribs will go on this afternoon, and they will be cooked HORNIAN'S way. So, thanks again for this thread.
OK, after looking at this post for some time and debating back and forth about trying it (I am a baby-back rib fanatic and rarely go for the "big" rib), I went ahead and did this exact recipe over the weekend. Some friends were smoking a pit at their house and I had already lit mine, but I took the invitation to be a great testing group for what might happen with this 3-2-1 method and since I had not thrown the ribs on yet, I headed over. I need to preface the friends and let you know these people have been smoking meat in their family for as long as anyone I know. The 65 year-old brother was there who had a BBQ place in his day. We enjoy a few cocktails with our cooking (and as the recipe calls for ), so everyone was nice and relaxed as we began with a few other items and the ribs I brought that I had already trimmed and rubbed. When it got to the point to throw them in the oven I got the looks of "ok, whatever....." I said, I saw this recipe and wanted to try it like it stated so I could give it a true test. To keep the story short, when I pulled them off the last hour on the smoker, I knew from the look of them, something special had transpired during this process. The ribs were perfect. No other way to describe them. They were gone within 30 minutes. The bones would literally pull out with not a scrape of meat on them. The taste was awesome. Thanks for posting this and I look forward to impressing several more groups of friends with this recipe. Tailgate approved.
I have an electric smoker (cabinet style) so I was trying the 3-2-1 method today. I used pork loin ribs, st. louis cut but they must of have been thin because after 3 hours I think they were more than done. I say think, because I wrapped them in foil and placed back in the smoker for two hours at which point they were toast. The rack of ribs weighed about 2.75 lbs. I choose to put them back on the smoker instead of an oven, because my smoker is basically an outdoor oven with a wood chip burning box. I set the heat for 225 and the smoker will regulate itself to stay within 3 degrees up or down of that target. The thermometer is about 4/5s up the side of the cabinet.
So... I tried this method using a Weber 22 inch grill this past weekend.... Much to my surprise and delight... success.. success... Made a few minor changes.. used honey mustard, Montreal Steak seasong and pork seasoning for the rub.. and only put on for 20 minutes after the 3 and 2 step. Glorious ribs.
I have tried the same method except for one alteration. During the foil wrapping stage I add a generous amount of honey followed by brown sugar to both sides of the ribs. Then add about a half cup of apple juice and seal foil to make water tight. I also maintain a drip pan beneath the grate filled with apple juice. I also use three large chunks of apple wood combined with a few Jack Daniel's wood chips.
I don't get adding brown sugar and honey during the foil stage, but adding some apple juice during this stage is a common trick. It steams the ribs and makes them tender; when you take off the foil and put them back on the smoker the crust firms up, so teh ribs just seem tender, not steamed.
The honey/brown sugar add some sweetness to the spice in the rub and thicken the bark. Try it. It adds another element to the ribs.
pretty much spot on recipe, only thing I would change is use Dizzy Dust All Purpose Rub. By far the best rub I've ever used for ribs.
best use of the thread bump I've seen. I just meticulously cleaned all of the parts of my Weber Smokey Mountain just so I can start the summer rib smoking season off well by using hornian's recipe.
Add some butter with the honey and brown sugar when you prepare the foil stage. Not diet friendly, but who cares!
lostman, I must've read the same article you did, because the butter/brown sugar addition is next on my list of recipes to try out.
A bump as I prepare my ribs Hornfans. You should seriously do this. The ribs are Magnificat. Thanks Hornian. Hoping everyone has a delicious Memorial Day.
Thanks for the bump! You inspired me to try this tomorrow. I just bought a 3.5 lb rack. I like large racks
FWIW, I used to suck at smoking ribs until this post. I've used various rubs, but the technique is fail proof and I've used this literally since the first time I saw this post probably almost a decade ago. Hornfans and the recipe book that used to be on the old board has had a huge impact on my food life.
