What says a Sunday afternoon BBQ better than baby-back ribs. I headed down to one of my favourite butcher-shops for these four beautiful racks. This is my first time trying ribs from Churchhill Natural Meats but I certainly don’t think it will be my last.
What you need:
- 4 racks of baby-back pork ribs
- your favourite dry rub
- 1 jar of Original Maple BBQ Sauce
- 1 jar of Maple Peach Fruit Sauce
- 1 cup of Apple Juice.
The first step when making pork ribs is removing the membrane. You’ll know if it’s still there if the rib side is smooth and glossy. I’ve had ribs before where the membrane was already removed which I certainly appreciated because it can be tricky to pull off sometimes. Then sprinkle some of your favourite dry rub on.
Dry Rub
- 1/2 cup paprika
- 1/3 cup sea salt
- 1/4 cup garlic powder
- 1/4 cup black pepper
- 3 tbsp cayenne pepper
- 3 tbsp onion powder
Optional for a bit of an herb flavour
- 2 tbsp oregano
- 2 tbsp thyme
This sat in the fridge for a couple hours until it was time to start the smoker.
I’m using homemade charcoal in the Big Green Egg today, with cherry chunks for smoke. Aiming for 225 – 230 F in the smoker, I let them smoke for about an hour before putting on the mop sauce. Starting off I had it directly over the coals, but quickly realized that my charcoal was burning hotter than expected so I added the plate-setter to smoke them over indirect heat.
The Mop Sauce is a blend of our Original Maple BBQ Sauce, Maple Peach Fruit Sauce and Apple Juice. Using half of the 580ml jar of BBQ Sauce, the whole jar of Fruit Sauce and a cup of Apple Juice. It was brushed on every 20-30 minutes to keep the ribs looking moist.
After about 2 more hours the ribs were pretty much done. The last step was to crank up the heat. Taking the ribs and plate-setter off I adjusted the temperature to around 350 F. Then using the remaining half of the BBQ Sauce, I brushed them liberally, flipping every few minutes and adding more. Make sure you keep an eye on them at this stage, all that delicious sauce can burn easily at this point. The ribs were taken off after they looked well coated and caramelized, getting that sauce all sticky.
Such a simple recipe but what flavour. Looking forward to making these again!
