Beef Ribs

Dinosaur Ribs

AKA Beef Back Ribs AKA “Will you look at the size of those things?  What is this, a rerun of the Flintstones?”

Doing beef ribs can be a challenge.  As a BBQ, they are amazingly beefy, flavorful, and will stand up to just about any kind of rub, sauce, or dressing you care to put on them.  On the down side, though, they can be stringy, tendon-y, and tough as shoe leather.  Cooking on an open grill is a special challenge due to the lack of heat control.

Let me say up front, no, we don’t precook them in a conventional oven for hours and no, we don’t boil the things.  Boiling will render the meat tender.  It will also render it rather flavorless.

There are four keys to getting good grilled beef ribs.

First: Remove the membrane.  This is a solid sheet of protein on the back side of the ribs.  Exposed to heat, you could bungee jump using the thing.  To peel it off, use a blunt knife like a butter knife to loosen the edge at the end of one of the bones, grab hold of the membrane (using a cloth, paper towel, fish skinner, or pliers will help you hold on to it.  Trust me.) and gently rip it off.  It's a pain in the butt, but the payoff is you get to keep most of your teeth at dinner.

Second:  Brining:  You can use either a wet brine (water, salt, sugar) or a dry brine (a simple salt rub).  We use the latter, rubbing the meat with salt all over the night before.  Brining does some wonderful chemical tricks with the meat, allowing the surface to hold onto more water during cooking and making the meat far more moist and tender.  We use the same trick with chicken and pork, always to good results.

Third:  The Rub.  Our Middle River Rub recipe is included below.  Give yourself time for the rub to sit on the meat for at least an hour or so.

 Yeah we made a LOT of rub for the Labor day party

 No, not wine, just a used bottle with olive oil

Ahh, the joys of the Middle River Rub

Fourth:  Low and Slow:  These things take some time to cook.  A couple of hours is desirable at around 180-200 degrees F.  

To keep the temperature in line, we use aluminum pans to cover the meat and a water filled drip pan directly under the ribs, with the fire used as indirect heat around the fringes.  Need additional control?  Toss another tin pan over the coals to damp down the heat a bit.

Even with the best of cooking, Beef Ribs can be at the very least firm flesh, not the sort of buttery, melt off the bone texture you get with pork, but the flavors are exceptional bordering on amazing.  With a good rub and slow cooking, they’re a treat.  Besides, you get to feel like Conan the Barbarian ripping the flesh off the bones.  Now what could be better than that?

Middle River Rub:

First, rub the (hopefully brined) meat with lemon juice and olive oil.

The Rub:

(takes about 4-6 TBL of the rub per rack of beef ribs, but you should use as much as will stay on the meat)

3 TBL Smoked Paprika

3 TBL ground chili (ancho is what we used.  1 Large Dried Chili is about enough)

3 TBL Black Pepper

3 TBL Brown Sugar

1 TBL Garlic Powder

1 TBL Cumin Seed

1 TBL Mustard Seed

1 tsp Ground Ginger

1 tsp Ground Allspice

1/2 of a whole nutmeg, grated

As much hot pepper flakes as you wish.  We used about 1 TBL

First toast the Chili, cool, and grind.  Then toast the cumin seeds until fragrant, toast the mustard seeds until they begin to pop.  Grind these as well.

Mix cooled dried ingredients and put in a sealed container.

Then drive your neighbors crazy with the smell of these cooking.  Yum.

Hey, check out our other blogs and the sagas of the Shantyboat "Floating Empire" over at floatingempire.blogspot.com and Life, Art, Water, you'll be glad you did :)

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M