St Louis

henapple

I've never smoked St Louis style ribs. Thinking of doing some Sunday. Opinions please?

Skiddymarker

Little less meat than back ribs, IMHO, but the process can be the same as back ribs. SWMBO prefers sauce over dry ribs, so we do them all with sauce in the 3-2-1 fashion. (which for St Louis is usually more like a 2-1-1). Grid temp 225-275. Two hours for the smoke, two hours in foil with some apple juice/water, 1/2 hour to 1 hour with her favorite BBQ sauce. 

gdenby

I prefer a dry style rib. So I do them dome 250, raised, indirect, usually at least 5 hours, no foiling. Sometimes I find ribs that are a little lighter than average, and they will finish in 4. Likewise, if the heat is higher, say 275 - 290, they will be done more quickly. And if they are going slowly at hour 4, I raise the temperature.

I glance at them at hours 3 & 4. By hour 4, I often find that the bone ends are well exposed, and the meat pretty soft. If so, I go back at 4.5 hours, and give them a light brushing of oil, and a dusting of more rub. At that point, they should be very close to passing the bend test. If they are still tough, I come back again in 15 min, and brush them very lightly w. water, and continue that till the slab is just about to break apart under its own weight.

I do serve w.warmed sauce on the side.

JwgreDeux

I like St. Louis style.  Most comp cooks do them that way.  I will trim my spares St Louis style and cook the trimmed pieces along with the ribs.  Trimmed pieces will be done much soon and are a great snack for the cook.

No foil for me, I use a dry rub and sauce the last 30 min to get a nice glaze.

I'm fairly new to ribs, but they have been coming out great.  I used both the bend test and toothpick test for done-ness, mine usually run about 4.5 hours at 275 raised indirect.

MrCookingNurse

I do St. Louis every time. My favorite. 250-275. I don't trim them unless I'm feeding others just for ease of eating. 3-4 hours with just rub, no mustard, then I foil them with a brown sugar, butter, apple juice mixture for last hour. They are still pretty dry after that and always tender and juicy.

I wanna do some baby backs one day but always buy St. Louis.

NibbleMeThis

I do spare ribs about half of the time and when I do spares, I like to trim them St Louis style.



I made a quick video on how to trim them in this post:  http://www.nibblemethis.com/2011/09/how-to-trim-st-louis-style-spare-ribs.html

I cook my St. Louis style very similar to loin back ribs, maybe 30-45 minutes longer.  250f, hickory and cherry, smoke about 5 hours.  I'll foil them with brown sugar, butter, tiger sauce if I am in a hurry.  If not, I don't bother with foil.

SmokeyPitt

I have always used a similar method as Skiddy and MrCookingNurse for baby backs.  I usually do 3 hours in smoke, 90 minutes foil, then a 30 minute finish out of the foil at 275 dome temp.  However, I think spares have more fat so when I tried this they were a little too fall-aparty.  Last time I tried them as gdenby suggested- rub em and smoke em until they are done!  I did apply a few layers of sauce the last 20 minutes or so.  That is my new go-to way for spares. 

Nothing wrong with the foil method, but if you do try it I would keep it short (hour or less). 

henapple

If its a spare rib...why cut it? I've never tried cooking ribs direct. Interesting.

DocWonmug

Nice video Nibble.