Cherry baby backs


 
Lynn Dollar

Lynn Dollar

TVWBB Emerald Member
I smoked three racks of baby backs on the Masterbuilt 560 gravity feed. Each rack had a variation of cherry seasoning.

I was gonna do all three with this recipe Tuffy Stone Loin Back Ribs with Cherry Barbecue sauce . But decided to mix it up on the other two. I found Tuffy's Cool Smoke rub at Ace Hardware.

I put Kosmos Dirty Bird Hot on another rack and glazed them with Kosmos Apple Cherry Habernero glaze.

I found a Steven Raichlen recipe from his book " Ribs, Ribs, Outrageous Ribs " that was published in 2005. Its called " Baby Back Ribs with Cherry Lambic Beer barbecue sauce " . Its really old school. It does not have a rub. The rack of ribs are marinated in a cherry lambic beer ... along with onion, garlic, bay leaves, all spice berries, and black peppercorns. He seasons the ribs iwith S/P before marinating.

I can't recall smoking a meat without a rub. Early on I got worried when the rack did not take on much color, but after 4 hours or so on the smoker, they did not appear much different than the ribs with rub. And when glazed I could not tell there was no rub on the rib either by color or flavor.

He also used the cherry lambic beer in the sauce, along with onion, I used dried cherries, ketchup, vinegar , brown sugar, honey , cherry preserves, worcestershire, and S/P . All of this pureed and reduced to a thick sticky sauce.

Tuffy's rub

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The Kosmo rub and glaze, and yeah, $9.95 seems steep, but that bottle will glaze a lot of racks of ribs. And by the time I source the ingredients for both Tuffy and Raichlen's sauce, I've easily spent more than that. The lambic beer was $5 each and I used two bottles.



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The cherry lambic beer, I found Lindemans



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Here's about 2 1/2 hours into the cook and I was beginning to wonder about not using a rub. The Raichlen ribs are on the bottom grate .



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And the glazed products, outside in the sun. Raichlen rib on top, then Kosmos, then Tuffy Stone.




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And inside ......... Kosmos on top, then Tuffy, then Raichlen, these are sauced, sticky, baby backs.


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And the cut ribs , I think this was the Raichlen rack , and I did not get pics of the other two



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And I found something interesting about my MB560 gravity feed. I put slender splits into the charcoal chute. But I also add good sized chunks in the ash pan. Lit coals fall down on the chunks and create more smoke. In my ash pan, I've cut a small piece of expanded metal and put it on firebricks, this to put the chunks on to allow air to get under the chunk and keep the chunk from getting buried in ash in the bottom of the pan.

I opened the firebox door twice yesterday and saw this. And I fed it chunks like babysitting a stick burner for the rest of the cook. IDK if this is a good thing, because I'm not sure the metal in this smoker was meant for live fire. I've got paint peeling inside the door and on the inside of the firebox. IDK if its burning through the metal.

However, this does contribute to stick burner flavor.

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Ribs look awesome.
Always enjoy your cooks Lynn, I'v never been able to keep track of my different flavors on my ribs ribs.
Kinda like the three cups one ball magician trick....:)
 
So, Lynn, which one did you like the best??

Love the chunks set up.....you may be right about that MB unit not being built to withstand flames, but there's one easy (though possibly expensive) way to find out! :)

R
 
Rich G said:
So, Lynn, which one did you like the best??

Love the chunks set up.....you may be right about that MB unit not being built to withstand flames, but there's one easy (though possibly expensive) way to find out! :)

R
Click to expand...

Tuffy Stone. But all three were delicious.

After the cook Friday, I thought the Tuffy Stone was the best. With Kosmos running a close second. But I would not kick the Raichlen ribs out of bed.

We just finished off the Tuffy and Raichlen ribs, and I still think the same.

Raichlen ribs very much had the lambic cherry beer flavor. I've always been skeptical of cooking with any alchohol, but we drank most of one of these lambics, and these ribs adapted that flavor.

Kosmos was very good and the simplest. Just put a rub on and set the glaze at the end of the cook.

Both the Raichlen and Tuffy sauces were complex and took some time to make and I had to source the ingredients, but hey, the Tuffy ribs were worth the time.

I'm still amazed at not putting a rub on the Raichlen ribs and they came out so good.
 
Nice cook and write up Lynn - I like doing side by side cooks/comparisons too. It's hard to decide what methods/seasonings you really like best if you don't line em' up side by side. Justin @ Baby Back Maniac posted a video recently comparing "binders" - you know the things that people put on meat to help rubs "stick". Justin concluded that olive oil was the worst, mustard was "OK" and gave plain old water the best rating because it didn't "block" or deaden any of the flavors from the rub, and had a better smoke ring/smoke flavor..
 
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