RDOwens
TVWBB Super Fan
This summer seems to be the season of spare ribs for us. I have been smoking lots of racks this year.
My wife, always there with her thoughts, has let me know that she likes tightly trimmed St. Louis racks. She does not want to deal with any cartilage. Yesterday she was out shopping and picked up a couple racks of spares at BJs. Today I trimmed them to her liking.
We've been watching our food lately. My usual preparation for spares is a standard rub. When I wrap I use squeeze margarine, honey, sugar (either brown or turbinado), and some apple juice. We try to eliminate (or at least limit) sugar. With that in mind, I decided to go simply today.
I used 50/50 Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. I rubbed the racks and then sprinkled them with some cumin.
In the WSM I used one fist-sized piece of hickory and two smaller chunks of apple. I ran the WSM at 230.
Ribs went in meat side up for two hours. When I went to wrap I noticed that while the bones were where I expected them to be, the color was lighter than usual. My usual rub does not use sugar, so I was a bit surprised. I wrap in hd foil with just some squeeze margarine inside; I added nothing else. The foiled ribs went back on the WSM.
About 50 minutes later I unwrapped the ribs. The racks had pulled back nicely. I placed them back on the WSM meat side down. No sauce. Without all the sugar that is usually on the ribs at this point, I left the spares on for 30 minutes. At that point I pulled them, wrapped them in hd foil again, and placed them in the cooler for an hour. The color was definitely lighter than my normal ribs, but I rather liked that.
At an hour+, I unwrapped the ribs and sliced. Loved them! The pork really shines this way not hidden beneath the sugar. Next time I may rub a little more aggressively, but I definitely enjoyed them this way.
