My son and I decided to brave the 15 degree weather and cook some ribs for someone we know who needed them so much more than we do.  Cancer is a terrible thing.  We put our entire heart into it and cooked them just like we do for competition, which has gotten multiple top 10 calls at the American Royal.  We documented the process in time-lapse, which you can see in the video below.  I’ll also explain what we used and the process here.  Enjoy!

Trimming:  We used Smithfield Prime ribs, St Louis cut.  We trimmed them so they were perfectly rectangle and left 10-11 bones on each rack, cutting off a bone or two from the small end and a bone or two from the extra fatty side.  This makes it such that we have 10-11 competition quality bones remaining.  For competition, we like to turn in either 8 or 10, so we want 4 or 5 perfect ribs from two different racks.

Seasoning the bone side:

• A light coat of B&B Charcoal Texas Trinity
• A medium coat of EAT BBQ Zero to Hero
• A light coat of KOSMOS Killer Bee Chipotle

Seasoning the meat side:

• A light coat of B&B Charcoal Texas Trinity
• A medium coat of EAT BBQ Zero to Hero
• A light coat of Cimmaron Docs Sweet Rib Rub

Cooking:

• Preheat your smoker to 275 degrees, where the meat will lay (grate level).  Do not trust any other ambient temperature readings other than what you are measuring where the meat will lay.  We use a Fireboard and/or an iGrill.  Both have trustworthy ambient temperature probes.
• Cook the ribs meat up for 2 – 2.5 hours, until they have a nice mahogany color.  We do not temperature probe our ribs at any point, we are simply going off of good color at this point.
  • Note: After 1 hour into the first part of this cook, you could put some butter or Parkay on the ribs.  This does help with color.
• After 2 – 2.5 hours, wrap the ribs as you see in the video.
• Prepare foil sheets for wrapping and then put down:
  • A light sprinkle of Brown sugar
  • A light dusting of Killer Bee Chipotle
  • A drizzle of honey
  • Put the ribs meat down on top of that, then on the bone side:
  • A light sprinkle of brown sugar
  • 2-3 tabs of butter
  • A drizzle of Apple Cherry Habanero Rib Candy
  • Wrap ribs tightly
• Put the ribs back on the smoker and smoke another 1.5-2 hours
• To test for doneness, take a toothpick and poke the ribs in several spots.  You should feel very little resistance.  This takes some practice, but you will get there.
• Once done, remove the ribs from the smoker, drain the juices into a pan (or right into the trash) and let the steam begin to come off the ribs for 5-10 minutes.  Like any meat, you want the meat to rest before slicing.  You could also hold these ribs in a cambro type food container or a cooler with a towel for up to an hour and they will still be piping hot.

Good luck and enjoy!

Matt Frampton

Pitmaster of Hot Grill on Grill Action BBQ Team | Author of The Book on Competition BBQ | Pizza Addict | Husker Fan | Musician

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Here’s the full video!  (sorry about the zoom issues during the wrapping phase, my Apple Watch dial was turning against my glove)