The earlier post on civil war over barbecue got quite a bit of interest. I thought I'd share my recipe for barbecued ribs that is a decent approximation of SouthEastern pit barbecued ribs. This method took quite a bit of trial and error, and a lot of developmental work went into it.
Here's how I do it on a gas grill. It sounds crazy, but it really does work and it comes out literally almost as good as the best Southeastern pit barbecue:
1) Use pork spare ribs. Wash them, and then rub them with chili powder. There is no need to spend good money on expensive rubs.
2) Heat the grill to low flame the entire width of the grill. Put a sheet of aluminum foil over the the grill. You need enough foil to rest the entire rack of ribs on the foil. I realize the "low flame" concept is vague and will vary from grill to grill. What I mean by low flame is that you want a close approximation to the heat generated by a charcoal grill after the coals are no longer flaming, are white all over, and the coals are ready for grilling.
3) Put the ribs on the foil and close the grill. After a while it will look like it's frying because the fat is sizzling. That's OK. You just want to make sure it's not burning or getting too cooked on the outside too fast.
4) Cook it at this low temp until it's looking well done on the burner side. Then flip them over. I like to cook the meat side first, then the slick skin tissue side.
5) The goal is that the meat is tender. Tender enough to be easily come off the bone when you bite it.
6) This takes an hour and a half on my grill, so you have to be patient. You cannot rush the tenderizing process. It simply must have the low heat and time it requires.
7) After the meat looks good, set it aside and carefully crumple up the foil to discard it. The idea is the fold it in such a way that the fat does not pour onto the flame and causing problems. Discard the foil. Put the meat back on the grill.
Slather the inside side (not the meat side, the slick tissue side) with barbecue sauce. A great commercial sauce is Kraft Honey barbecue sauce. This sticks to the meat better than any other commercial sauce I have used. (I digress to say that honey is a magic ingredient in all barbecue sauces because it helps the sauce stick to the meat much better than sauces using other sweeteners.)
9) When the slick side of the ribs are sauced, put the ribs sauce side up on the grill. Close the grill and come back in about 10 minutes.
10) Turn the ribs over to be meat side up and sauce the meat side. This is the time to put the corn on the grill.
11) Wait 10 minutes being careful that the sauce is not burning. You will need to distrust your grill until you work the temperature settings out. Temp should be as low as possible for cooking the sauce.
12) Serve the ribs at the table on a big cutting board, if you have one. Let them sit on the board until people are ready to eat, then cut them off the rack. Serve with more barbecue sauce.
If you like a good hickory flavor, you can do this at step 3: Take a handful of hickory chips and put them in a packet of aluminum foil. Punch a few 1/2 inch holes in the foil and set the packet hole-side-up on the grill. You don't need a lot of chips. You don't need water. It's as easy as can be. The wood will start to smoke and char and it will impart a good hickory flavor to the meat.
