Smoked BBQ Spare Ribs

I got some spare ribs and trimmed them St. Louis. St. Louis isn't a special kind of rib or recipe, it means that regular spare ribs have been trimmer of the flap, the boneless part at the top of the ribs and the membrane plus have had the last couple of small ribs removed and extra fat trimmed away.  I had almost three pounds of trimmings which I ground up and will use part of it in a lasagna in the next few days and froze the rest, possibly to end up in a meatloaf at some future date.

I liberally rubbed the cut ribs with The Squeal Hog Rub from Oklahoma Joe's in Kansas City.


After marinating them in the rub wrapped in plastic and foil in the refrigerator over night,



I fired up the smoker. I use charcoal and hickory chunks, not chips. I do not soak the wood in water because I want it to smoke, not steam.  Blue smoke is good. If you can't see smoke but smell it, that is OK too.  You don't want billowing gray smoke.  That means the wood is burning, not smoking. That is not good tasting or good for you.  White smoke isn't smoke. It is steam and while steam is going to keep your meat moist, it also makes it difficult to control the heat in the smoke chamber and it does not add very much smoke flavor.



After 2 1/2 hours smoking, it was wrapped in foil and roasted for another 2 hours, then opened up, basted with a sauce- any saucy you like- over direct heat for a few minutes while the sauce cooked in. You have to watch it or it might burn.







It was just my son and I today so we had the ribs and some dinner rolls. Nothing else.