Q-ing With Your Average Joe

by Fiber Joe Madrid

Hello all you happy people…

Here is a question I get asked a lot, Hey man how can I get a rack of ribs to taste like they’re smoked
without owning a smoker…
Well the first thing I usually say is buy a damn smoker.
I have found a few different ways on how to get that awesome smoked flavor and that’s what we are going to talk about this month, Welcome to Q-ing with your average Joe.

Most of the time you don’t have 6 hrs to smoke your ribs or you don’t own a smoker so here are a few methods that I have found work for me. Now just to let you know, I do not own a gas grill but I’ve cooked on tons of them and there is a method I’ve used that seems to work well. You can buy the smoke packets they sell or you can make your own out of foil, its real simple. All you do is take your favorite flavor of smoke chips (not chunks) soak them in water for an hour or two. Take a piece of foil about 8 inches long and fold your wood chips into it, make a little pouch out of it and poke a couple of holes in the top of it about the size of a pencil. On one side of your grill, place the pouch right on the burner under your rack, and turn your heat on medium. On the other side of your grill, place your ribs bone side down and turn the heat on low, this way your ribs will cook slow as well as getting the smoke flavor from your pouch. If you want a lot of smoke flavor, make a few pouches and place them all on the grill at the same time and don’t use any heat on the side your ribs are on. The pouches will start to heat up and create smoke, let them cook that way for about an hour then cook your ribs like you normally would to finish them off (bone side down on low heat for about 45 minutes and then meat side down until you get that nice little darkness on your ribs). Then I wrap them in foil put them back on the grill for about 20 minutes to get that fall off the bone greatness…

NOW… on my charcoal grill it’s done just a little bit different. I can usually get really decent smoke flavor in about 2 hours. I take my coals and place them on one side of my grill with smoke chunks and I’ll place my ribs with no coals on the other side, I’ll get my temp around 250-275, that way the wood chunks are smoking and not burning. Place your ribs bone side down, this helps the meat to catch all the smoke.
Cook them like this for an hour and a half, you’ll see your ribs changing color, you’ll see them getting that nice little smoke color. Then what I like to do, is slide them over to the other side bone down and cook them at about 300 for about 20 minutes; then flip them and cook meat side down until you get that nice darkness we all love. I like to wrap mine in foil then put them back on the grill for about another half hour, that will let all that flavor come together and make them fall right off the bone.

OR…. we can take the easy way out and do what I’m doing tonight. I’m using a sweet mesquite bbq rub made by my good friend Keith Jenkins over at Frog Bone. He’s taken all the back breaking work out of the 6 hour smoke time. He’s put all the flavors of smoking into this seasoning. I covered my ribs in a good portion of seasoning, put them in a big Ziploc bag, and place them in the fridge before I leave for work. I let them marinate all day, but you don’t have to. You can get the same flavor by putting the seasoning on and going straight to the grill. However, I try to get as much flavor out of the seasoning as I can, therefore, I marinate mine all day.

So on to the grill we go. Cook on low heat around 275 bone side down for about 45 minutes. Then flip the ribs meat side down and cook until you get that nice color we all love. Remember to keep an eye on them, keep your flame down or you can burn them. Then of course I like to wrap them in foil and put ’em back on the grill for about 20 minutes. This helps moisten the meat and gives it that fall off the bone texture, it also brings out all that flavor.

Make sure you let your ribs set for around 10 minutes before you cut into them. This way the meat will stay on the bone when you cut into them. If you cut them while they’re hot the bone will pull out and all you’ll have is all meat and no bone, which isn’t a bad thing, but I like to have a rib with the bone this gives you a little something to hold on to. And you know I have to keep it spicy so that’s why I cover mine in my favorite spicy bbq sauce, FRI-B-QUE SPICY, a kick to the throat every time.

Hope you all enjoyed the article. For those of you who don’t know me, let me introduce myself,
they call me Fiber Joe. I do product reviews on this amazing website called iloveitspicy.com. I am a BBQing fanatic with a love and passion for cooking. In this Newsletter every month I plan to introduce some of my favorite BBQing tips along with products that I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing and cooking with over the last four years. With some help from my closest BBQing homies, as guests, I plan to introduce some of our BBQing styles and recipes. So please check us out every month, I am looking forward to talking BBQ with you all.