Spare Ribs on Sunday Need Some Good Ideas

[Ben A Hillis]

Hello everybody I have another question for you guys.
I will be attempting to do some spare ribs for some guest coming over on Sunday. I have done spares with little success so this time I want to do a 3-2-1 version, but I feel the six hours might not be a long amount of time. The slabs are at different weights on is 3lbs. And the other is 4.5lbs. I also have a few baby's which I will throw in their as well. The baby's I am not concerned about. I have done Stogie's method ever since and it works great. But Stogie's post on spare ribs calls for about a nine hour smoke. So my questions:
1) What is a good 3-2-1 method for spare ribs? I want to use foil, I just need to know how much time they should stay in the foil. And yes the people who I am cooking for like fall off the bone tender.
2) BRITU rub, is this good on spares and how much time should I allow the rub to penetrate the ribs? Is overnight too much time? I don't want them to taste like ham, but I want a good bark.
3) How much time do spares usually take to smoke? Is nine hour too long? Is six hours too short?
4) Marinade? Any suggestions?

I appreciate the help.

Ben

 

[David Lohrentz]

Nine hours is much too long, IMO. If I am foiling spares, I smoke them at about 250 lid temp for approximately 4 hours. Then I foil for about 45 minutes, adding about 4 T of liquid such as apple juice, pineapple juice, vengar, wine, etc. Then remove from foil and reserve foil liquid, and put the ribs back on the smoker or grill for about an hour to improve the texture. So about 6 hours is what it takes in my experience.

As for rubs, I have never tried BRITU so I can't comment on that. My family doesn't like salty food, so I don't think they would like it. You could very easily end up with ribs that are too salty if you use that rub, esp. if you apply the night before. In general, I don't think that meats need to have rub applied in advance if you are cooking them for 6 hours or more. That is plenty of time for the rub flavor to penetrate the meat.

I don't like to sauce the ribs, but I like to serve a couple of sauces on the side at the table.

I don't think that ribs need to be marinaded.