This installment of Lazy Barbecue is all about beef ribs. Now, I love a good rack of baby back ribs, and it’s no secret that I love me some beef short ribs (see here, here, here, here, and here). I’ve even written about making Cook’s Illustrated’s Texas-Style BBQ Beef Ribs, but this version much is a little easier.
I did these ribs two different ways. One batch was kept in slab form and cooked for around six hours. The end result was fall-off-the-bone ribs, which tasted great, but I wanted ribs with a firmer texture. The ribs were so tender it was actually a challenge to keep the slab intact for this picture.
The second batch of ribs I tried were cut into individual pieces and cooked for only three hours. These ribs were great because they were the exact texture that I wanted, and it allowed me to pick up the rib and eat it right off the bone.
The constants with both batches of ribs were applying Texas Best Barbecue Spice Rub to the ribs before curing them overnight in the refrigerator, the cooking temperature (225F), and basting them with Texas Best Barbecue Sauce about 30 min before taking them out of the oven. You can use any rub and sauce you want, but if you can get your hands on the Texas Best rub or sauce, it’ll feel a little more “real” won’t it?
When you’re at the store looking for ribs, you want to find beef back ribs that look like this:
Picture from Nimanranch.com.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether you want to do the slab or the individual ribs, but I like cutting up the slabs because you can get a nice crust on all sides of each rib.
INGREDIENTS
Your favorite barbecue spice rub
Your favorite barbecue sauce
1 slab beef back ribs
- Sprinkle rub on ribs and refrigerator uncovered overnight
- 1 hour before cooking, remove ribs from fridge and wrap in foil. You can also put the ribs on a cooling rack set over a foil-lined cookie sheet.
- Preheat oven to 225F.
- Cook ribs for at least 3.5 hours for firmer ribs and more than 5 hours for fall-off-the-bone ribs.
- 30 minutes before removing from oven, open up foil and baste ribs in your favorite BBQ sauce. Finish cooking uncovered.
NOTES
- You can buy Texas Best Barbecue Sauce and Rub direct from their Web site.
- For a smokier flavor, try rubbing the ribs with a little liquid smoke before applying the rub.
