Told ya girls can grill, too! Or BBQ, in this case.

BBQ ribs, now that’s what I was really looking forward to making on the egg. Believe it or not: I’ve never cooked ribs on the BBQ. Probably because we only have a handful of weeks in which the weather is good enough to break out the grill, here in this tiny country below sea-level of mine. Now that the seasons are no longer an issue to me, I’ll be eating ribs all year ‘round.

Being the BBQ ribs virgin that I am, I emailed a friend of mine and asked him to hit me with his best baby back ribs recipe. And here’s what I got in return. I doubt I’ll try another technique anytime soon because these were cooked to perfection! Juicy, tender, succulent, super flavorful, mildly sweet, fall-of-the-bone tender with still enough bite to make them really interesting. Just a few phrases that came to mind as I devoured them.

Man, do I love ribs.

Ingredients:

2.5 pounds spareribs (you can use baby back ribs, too)
Apple wood smoking chips
2 cups apple juice
BBQ sauce
BBQ rub
lots of tin foil



Directions:

They mainly sell spareribs in the Netherlands. Spareribs are slightly meatier and tougher than baby back ribs, so they generally have to cook longer to get really tender.

If I would have known how good this was, I would have made 6 slabs at once. I bought the V-rack for it! Line your dripping pan with tin foil, we’ll be using apple juice and that can ruin your pan.

This was the first time I tried the Dizzy Dust rub and I liked it. It was kinda sweet, though. Next time I’ll try and whip up a similar rub myself, using turminado (ruwe rietsuiker) sugar does make all the difference.

I applied a generous amount of rub, put the ribs in plastic wrap and let them rest for a few hours giving the rub a chance to penetrate the meat.

I went for apple wood smoking chips. It smelled and tasted phenomenal. Next time I’ll try cherry wood. Soaked a good handful for about an hour. Told J-man they were smoking chips. He stood there and kept blowing them all the while murmuring: “I don’t see any smoke”. It was hilarious.

The time had come to put the ribs on the rack! There would have been room for so much more! Stupid me.

The pit had been fired up and the apple wood was drained and added to the charcoal.

There they went, the ribs. My lovely, wonderful ribs. I really dig all the smoke filling the back yard.

I gave them 2 hours at 250F (125C) so they’d get a pretty tan.

And oh boy, after those two hours they had a tan Kim Kardashian would have been jealous of! Looks good, doesn’t it?

Took them out of there for a split moment. Long enough to pour 2 cups apple juice into the dripping pan and cover the whole shebang with extra-thick tin foil.

Gave ‘em 2 1/2 to 3 hours more on the BBQ. Baby back ribs would probably be done after 2 hours. Now check this out!

We’re not there yet: ribs must be cooked with sauce. Yes, they must and there’s no arguing me on that or I’ll get really mean. I slathered them with my easy BBQ sauce and gave them 15 more minutes on the grill.

Wrap the babies in foil and let them rest for a little while, 5 to 10 minutes will do.

And the BBQ Gods smiled down on me that day! So did the weather Gods.

You gotta see how tender they were! See the small end of the slab? The part that often over-cooks and gets all dried out? Just look how succulent even that turned out! Just sayin’.

My next project will probably be ribs using an Indonesian-style marinade and ditto sauce.

I have a few questions for those of you more familiar with BBQ:

1) What’s your preferred BBQ method for ribs?
2) Do you use a rub or a marinade?
3) home-made or commercial BBQ sauce?
4) Do you use wood chips and if you do what kind?