Ribs AND Cornbread!

kpeterzalek · February 2015

Ribs are my favorite food to smoke and according to my friends I think i'm zero'd in on a few consistently good techniques. The following is only one of the ways i'll do ribs, with additional variations to be posted in the future.

Process

First thing is the rub. This spicy rub is what I use for all pork and crafted it myself. It is pretty simple:

Rub

1 TB light brown sugar
1 TB sugar in the raw
1 TB paprika
1 TB kosher salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp fresh black pepper
1/4 tsp Ancho chili powder
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Mop - mix in a small bowl
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3 TB plain yellow mustard
few splashes of Worcestershire sauce
juice from half lemon

First thing first, pull the membrane off

Put all rub ingredients into grinder or "food chopper" and smooth it out. As you can see I utilize a mini food processor from Cusinart and it works great.

Lather the ribs up with plain yellow mustard to allow the rub to adhere.

Liberally coat the ribs with the rub and allow to sit about an 20 minutes. This will create a glaze-like appearance indicating the rub as set into the meat.

I use a BBQ Guru DigiQ II set at 235 degrees for the cook. I selected about 2-3 good sized chunks of Apple wood and added to the lump. This lasted me the entire smoke.

After two hours on the smoker, Whisk together the Mop recipe above in a small bowl. Using a brush or mop give it a liberal coating every hour. I let the ribs go about 6 hours and they started passing the "bend test." No foil

Final product!

BONUS - made-from-scratch Jalapeno corn bread

credit: http://www.instructables.com/id/Perfect-Homemade-Cornbread/

1 cup flour
1 cup yellow corn meal
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 large jalapeno diced
2 eggs
1/2 olive oil
Milk as needed

Using a spatula, mix the dry ingredients together into a bowl, then add eggs and oil. It will be pretty dry and lumpy. Once it is mixed together best you can, start adding milk slowly until it reaches a consistency of pancake batter. Add the jalapenos and mix it up. Pour into a greased 9X9 pan and cook 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees.