Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons (27 page)

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Authors: Colleen Rush,Gary Wiviott

BOOK: Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons
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BARBECUE CLASSICS: MEMPHIS-STYLE RIBS
 
IN MEMPHIS, RIBS ARE SERVED UP DRY OR WET
. That is, dripping-wet with sauce or dry-crusted with rub.
 
 
MEMPHIS DRY RIBS
 
At Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous restaurant, the so-called birthplace of the Memphis dry rib, layers and layers of dry rub go on the rib racks via a rub-heavy basting liquid similar to the Tart Wash. The wash of seasoned liquid throughout the cook builds a thick, rub-crusted bark.
DRY RIB RUB, MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP
 
½ cup Morton kosher salt
¼ cup freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon celery seed
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon Toasted Mexican Pepper
Blend (page 18)
 
DRY RIB WASH, MAKES 2 CUPS
 
1 cup water
1 cup white vinegar
3 tablespoons Dry Rib Rub or rub of choice
 
To prepare the rub, mix the ingredients in a medium bowl, using a whisk to thoroughly blend.
To prepare the wash, pour the water, vinegar, and rub into a plastic condiment squirt bottle. Vigorously shake the bottle until the salt in the rub dissolves and the seasoning and liquid are blended.
Smear both sides of the rack with ¼ cup prepared yellow mustard. Shake 2 tablespoons of Dry Rib Rub over the racks, front and back.
Follow the cook instructions for Lesson #4. Every 30 to 45 minutes during the cook—when you open the cooker to check the water pan or charcoal level or to flip the ribs—spritz the ribs with the Dry Rib Wash. When the ribs are done, remove them from the cooker and baste the meat with more Dry Rib Wash. Shake a final layer, about 1 tablespoon, of Dry Rib Rub over each rack.
MEMPHIS WET RIBS
 
Neely’s Bar-B-Que in Memphis serves one of the most famous examples of the wet rib. The ribs are repeatedly mopped with a sweet tomato-based sauce in the final thirty minutes of the cook, then doused again when the racks are pulled off the cooker. Don’t baste earlier in the cook with this sauce; the high dose of sugar in the sauce can burn easily. This is not my personal preference in rib styles, but it certainly is a crowd-pleaser. Add more hot sauce or a pinch of the Toasted Mexican Pepper Blend (page 18) if you want more heat.
MAKES ABOUT 4 CUPS
 
2 cups ketchup
1 cup water
⅔ cup cider vinegar
6 tablespoons light brown sugar
6 tablespoons sugar
1 lemon, juiced (about ¼ cup juice)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
½ tablespoon onion powder
½ tablespoon garlic powder
½ tablespoon dry mustard
1½ teaspoons Louisiana-style Louisiana-style or
Mexican-style hot sauce, such as Texas Pete,
Louisiana, or Búfalo
 
Combine all of the ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring the sauce to a rolling boil, stirring frequently. When the sauce comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low. Simmer the sauce, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.
Follow the cook instructions for Lesson #4. When checking the ribs for doneness and when checking the charcoal and water pan levels in the last 30 minutes of the cook, paint a thick layer of the sauce on the ribs. Paint on a second layer of sauce in the last 15 minutes, and a third as soon as you pull the ribs off the cooker.
STUFFING YOUR SMOKER
 
While you’re learning the basics in this program and until you really understand how your cooker works, I strongly suggest moderation in the amount of meat you cook. It’s partly because I don’t want you to open the cooker eight hundred times to rotate the meat. And if the cook is a disaster, you’re only losing a couple of chickens or racks of ribs. Also, for practical reasons, if you’re using a kettle, there’s just not enough space to cook more.
But as you get savvier about barbecue and the ways of your cooker, the fact is, you can stuff it full enough to feed your neighborhood (at least the people you like) by rolling, standing, or stacking the ribs. For all of these techniques, flipping and rotating the racks is of the utmost importance to ensure that all of the slabs are equally exposed to the smoke and heat inside the cooker.
 
ROLLING
Roll the rack into a very loose “O” shape and use a wooden skewer to secure the roll. Depending on the size and type of ribs you’re cooking, you can fit up to ten rolled racks on an offset, five racks per grate on a WSM, and two racks on a kettle. Remember to flip and rotate the rolled racks every twenty minutes on a kettle or every thirty to forty-five minutes on a WSM or offset.
 
STANDING
With a rib rack (or an inverted roasting rack), you can fit as many slabs on each cooking grate as the rack allows, usually three to five slabs per rib rack. Flip and rotate the racks every twenty minutes on a kettle or every thirty to forty-five minutes on a WSM or offset.
 
STACKING
Flipping and rotating is the key with this technique—every thirty to sixty minutes, depending on the cooker—to equalize the amount of time the racks are exposed to smoke and the cooker’s “hot zone.” This method adds time to the cook because you’re opening the cooker more often and because each rack should go through the flip/rotate cycle twice.
 
WSM: Stack five racks per grate, with three racks on the bottom and two racks laid crosshatch on top. The larger chine bone of each rack should be facing the edge of the grate, where heat flows up sides of the cooker. Flip, reposition, and rotate the racks between the top and bottom grate every hour. The two cooking grates are not interchangeable, and you will have to remove the ribs on the bottom grate before you switch them with racks from the top grate. Ribs on the bottom grate will cook more slowly. When the ribs on the top grate are done, move the ribs on the bottom grate up, and give them a final fifteen or twenty minutes to finish.
 
OFFSET:
Lay as many racks as will fit on the grate vertically without touching to make a bottom layer. Face the larger chine bone of each rack toward the firebox, the hottest zone on the offset. Then crosshatch racks horizontally to make a top layer. Flip and rotate the racks every forty-five minutes, always keeping the side of the rack with the larger chine bone facing the firebox.
 
KETTLE:
Overlap two or three racks on the grate across from the water pan, with the larger chine bone of each rack facing the water pan and bank of charcoal—the hottest zone on a kettle. Flip and rotate the racks every thirty minutes.
A CAUTION ON ROLLING, STANDING OR STACKING
 
The only issue with stuffing a smoker is that any part of the meat that overlaps and touches another part will not brown or crust or absorb as much smoke. The meat will have a grayish cast in those spots. This doesn’t affect the flavor at all, but it’s not as appealing to the eye.
Although I caution against drowning good barbecue in sauce, this is the perfect time to use something like Danny’s Glaze (page 138) or a sauce to make ribs more visually appealing. A glaze, which contains more sugar than a sauce, should be applied as soon as the ribs come off the cooker. If you’re using a sauce with less sugar, it’s okay to paint the ribs at three intervals: thirty minutes before the rack is done, then fifteen minutes later, and then immediately after you take the ribs off the cooker. Whether you layer a sauce on or give the meat one shellacking with a glaze, this masks the grayish spots and give the ribs a photo-worthy gloss.
 
LOW & SLOW QUIZ: LESSON 4
 
Answer all of these questions correctly, and I give you my blessings to move forward and conquer Lesson #5: Pulled Pork. Flub just one question, and it’s in your best interest to redo Lesson #4. But don’t look at it as punishment or failure. Spare ribs are a delicious price to pay for the wisdom you need to cook a solid pork butt.
1. Approximately how often do you need to restock the charcoal in your cooker?
2. When restocking, it is acceptable to add fresh, unlit charcoal to the pile when at least half of the charcoal is lit and glowing bright. True or False?
3. The trick to stuffing your cooker with more meat (once you master each Lesson, of course) is flipping and rotating the racks every __________ in order to __________________.
4. St. Louis-style ribs are . . .
a. whole racks of spare ribs
b. spare ribs with the tips removed
c. spare ribs with tips, membrane and skirt removed
d. none of the above
5. Wrapping the ribs in aluminum foil for half of the cook makes barbecue fall-off-the-bone-tender. True or False?
6. If the temperature on the oven thermometer in the cooker is low, and the pile of charcoal is high and only partially burning . . .
a. the fire is choking from lack of oxygen
b. check to see if charcoal or ash is blocking the bottom vent(s)
c. add a fresh batch of lit charcoal
d. be sure the top vent is fully open and the bottom vents are open to the right degree
7. Rubs made for spare ribs and other thick, fatty meats should be stronger and more aggressive because...

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