Ribs kind of bland


 
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Mike U

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I just took my first crack at ribs today and was kind of disappointed in the results. I picked up 4 loin back slabs from Costco and decided to do 2 BRITU and 2 using some reciepes from Paul Kirk's book.

I followed the BRTIU pretty closely. I only let them sit with the rub for an hour instead of 2, used hickory and cherry instead of oak and cherry, and used a sweetened Famous Dave's Sweet and Tangy Sauce instead of KC masterpiece.

The other slabs I used Paul's standard championship class rub applied over a light mustard glazing. I also mopped these 2 at 3 & 4 hours with his all purpose mop - vinegar, lemon juice, oil, soy sauce and some spices. I also used one of his standard KC sauce recepies which was actually very tasty.

I sauced all 4 slabs with about 30 minutes to go and took them off when they passed the tear test and the toothpick test.

The thing is, they just weren't that flavorful. The texture of the meat was fantastic but none of them really had much flavor from the rub.

The only thing in retrospect I'm wondering if I did wrong was that I didn't rub or sauce the backsides of the ribs and the rubs were just lightly to moderately sprinkled on, not rubbed inot the meat. Other than that I thought I had followed things pretty closely.

Any ideas? I've done a few Mr. Browns and some turkey breast before and was really blown away by the flavor in them. This time it just didn't quite work out.

Thanks,
Mike
 
Hi Mike,

I have rubbed ribs just before I put them on and they had great flavor. It depends on the rub, but I typically apply about a 1/3 cup of rub to each baby back rib rack, front and back. Also make sure you remove the membrane from the bone side so that the spice can get to the meat.

One thing I have noticed is that if you don't put an ample amount of rub in your mop and you mop often, you may just be washing the rub off. I typically will start mopping about halfway through the cook and then halfway through the remaining timing, etc, etc, etc. If you mop to early, you might wash the rub off.

Good Luck!

-mc
 
I think that was probably it. I probably used 1/4 cup for 3 full racks. I thought it seemed kind of light but the BRITU and other reciepes stressed it was more of a sprinkling than a rub.

Next time I'll a rack with a little heavier sprinkling and one real heavy.

Live and learn.
 
I had a similar experience to yours with my first batch of BRITU ribs, so the next time I went heavier on the rub and it was much better, but too salty.

Now I think the way to go is to add the salt separately, then use a salt-free rub as heavily as you want. (I did this once substituting leftover BRITU rub for salt, and it was great.)

It's also hard to know if you're really matching the amount of smoke wood from the recipe, especially with store-bought wood chunks & chips. Takes practice, but I've found that my earlier tries weren't smoky enough. You might want to add more wood to get rid of some more blandness.
 
Geoff,

I agree 100% about the saltiness in the BRITU rub. I used just about all of the 1/4 recipe on 4 slabs of baby backs and although they turned out excellent, I was able to taste a little more salt than I would have liked. If the ratio of salt to spice was cut a tad, I think it would be perfect.

Then again, I did get ribs that had the "solution added" (only good looking ribs available locally) and I'm sure that added to the saltiness as well.
 
You can use 1/4-cup of salt like the BRITU recipe calls for, but use kosher salt instead of table salt. Kosher salt has two advantages. Out of the box, it's less dense than table salt so it has less mass. It also does not have that metallic taste mostly associated with table salt. It's milder and much more forgiving if you put too much on the meat. If you use 1/4-cup of the kosher salt, your ribs won't be too salty.

-mc
 
After removing the membrane from the ribs the night before, I slather them with cheap yellow mustard. Liberally cover with rub. (I can't even taste the mustard afterwards.) Foil and put in fridge.

During the cook, every 30 min or so I get a plastic squirt bottle and hit the ribs with olive oil, vinager, and garlic powder. (I like garlic.)

When done, I take the ribs off the smoker and put them in foil. Some we put a sauce on and some we don't. Then make the foil air tight and put in a cooler covered with towels for at least an hour or two to let them cool on their own if you can wait that long.

I use the same technique for pork butt, but apply the oil and vinegar every hour or so.

Pretty good stuff.

Sonny Jordan (Pork Eat World)
 
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