Country-Style Pork Ribs

In what’s slowly become the weekend tradition, I drive on over to the local Sam’s Club and pick out a piece of meat to cook. I’m up and at ’em early, so while MrsForensicBBQ sleeps, I’m out looking for the next post. When she’s up and ready to go to the store, I’ll have already researched my cook and ready to find ingredients for the next creation.

My cart was filled with glorious, and expensive things and I decided to put them all back because I’ve never done the “Country-Style” rib. Which isn’t a rib at all, but we treat it as such. Today was the day, so I got after it.

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Recipe

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I’ll say up front, not my favorite cook. If you want a rib, buy a rib. Sure, these suffice while saving a few bucks – but if you’re going to buy a butt, make some pulled pork out of it and enjoy it for days. Don’t get me wrong, it turned out fine and tasty – but it left me wanting real, authentic ribs in the end.

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The Prep Table

You want ribs, let’s make ’em like ribs. Most of this, I did like I would do a rack of authentic baby backs or spares, but with a little bit of change. First, let’s get them dressed up and ready. Not surprising, I used the Fine Swine Pork Rub to coat the meat. If you refer back to my OG rib post – I like to let it dry brine and settle – but this time, I did a slight olive oil base then sprinkled the strips.

Lined a half pan with the meaty strips and rubbed and coated. I ended up switching to a full pan later on – but I was stubborn and tried to do everything in the half pan.

Ain’t nothing too special for the prep side of the house. Just time to get that RecTeq fired up and get to working. I went 250 to temp, and wow, did the time fly on these. I don’t know what the deal was, but I hit 200 in record time. Goes to show – cook to temp.

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The Process

Got the RecTeq running at 250 using a hodge-podge blend of woods. Went to Rural King a while back and bought a couple hundred pounds of pellets. I have them sorted in the Kingsford Kaddy’s by flavor – but sometimes you buy too much. Thanks to the RecTeq RT-700’s 40lb hopper – put all the leftovers in there.

This might be why everything cooked a little too fast too. It was pellet blend was heavy in the Lumberjack char-hickory which tends to burn hotter than normal. I was fighting a little bit of temperature fluctuation, but nothing crazy. Could’ve been a contributing factor, but who knows. Anyway, threw the “ribs” on the jerky rack – probed the biggun’ and let it do it’s thing until about 160 degrees.

The meat was cooking along just fine, and when it got to around 160 – went out there and gave it a peek. Was waiting for MrsForensicBBQ to get back with the corn – but she was busy being a first responder on the running trail. Nevermind that I had meat on the grill and corn to be smoked – I guess rendering aid was more important. ?

Color was coming along great, and it was time to do the “wrap”. I normally rock the 2-2-1 method for Ribs – 2 hours uncovered, 2 foil-wrapped, an hour unwrapped. I throw a touch of BBQ sauce on for the last 15 minutes and it’s a killer product. Today we were going do the “wrap” a little different.

You’ll see between the above picture and the below picture – two different pans. I tried to get the half-pan to work, but I changed it. I put equal parts Apple Cider Vinegar and Apple Juice at the bottom for the braising liquid. Had some of that jarred garlic so put a little splash of that in there as well. Sliced up a whole white onion for the meat to lay on so it wasn’t getting soaked in that juice. When I moved to the full pan – wasn’t as much of an issue, but it still worked all the same.

Once on top, I splashed another little bit of rub seasoning, some of that magic blue bottle (Parkay), a BBQ sauce spurt, and some brown sugar. Wrapped her up tight and tucked her in for a little bit.

When it was all said and done, I got to nearing 200 degrees. The color and tenderness was there. I’m used to using a BBQ sauce with more molasses, and thus a darker color, but the flavor on this was nice. Didn’t have that look that I’m used to – but the flavor was there. Moved these meaty strips over to the grates to finish them off.

What did I do in the mean time?

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The Result

I think it was James Madison in 1815 that said “Ain’t never been a meal that wasn’t made better by Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits”. So I used the store bought mix and put the new oven to the test.

Yeah, these turned out as expected. Buttery, salty, unhealthy – but damn good.

For the last 15 minutes here, put a little bit of that BBQ sauce on there and let it take up a little grill flavor. When it was all said and done – when that corn did it’s thing for an hour – here’s what we got:

The “Ribs” is done. The corn was made without any butter or flavor at all – so I ended up throwing some cajun seasoning on there. Took a little bit of them onions out of the full pan to eat with the meat and feasted.

The close up shot of that flavor. Juicy, some slight pink around the edges – the dark grill char on the bark. It was good, but it wasn’t ribs. They weren’t good ol’ spare/baby backs – but they were good. Made for an easy Sunday meal and lunches for a few days. Thanks for giving this one a read. Recipe is below and as always – the e-mail block is here too! See you on the next one!

*I plan on doing a giveaway coming up for my e-mail subscribers. I don’t know what it’ll be, but y’all subscribers are my favorite. Maybe it’ll be related to the #9 car bringing home a trophy last weekend?*

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The Recipe

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