Sunday, June 6, 12-4pm
Providence Church
35295 Detroit Road
Avon, OH 44011
A minimum donation of $15 is requested
I've been looking for ways to become more active at Providence and felt God was calling me to this opportunity as soon as I heard about it. So I talked to the guy organizing the competition and the next thing you know I was signed up, to cook 20 racks of St. Louis Style ribs! Did I mention that before signing up I had only cooked one 1/2 rack of ribs in my entire life? Heck, I'd probably even eaten less than 10 racks in my life prior to signing up! What can I say, pulled pork is more my style but I like a good challenge.
So for the past month or so I've been making a lot of ribs. Like with all my cooking, I've tried my best to make everything from scratch and treat the food with the respect it deserves. In my opinion, the only way to properly make ribs is low and slow, on a smoker (a Weber Kettle in my case) with a big kiss of smoke from apple wood. Ribs don't belong in the oven and they should never be boiled. I wanna see the smoke ring!
No, those aren't rare, the pink is caused by the smoking process
I've created numerous different handmade rubs that started with me grinding down dried chilies and mixing them with a variety of herbs and spices; I've applied the rub directly to the ribs as well as with a couple of different handmade mustard slathers; and who could forget the sauce? While I am still in the process of finding the right BBQ sauce, I think I came pretty close tonight. Of course it's my sauce has also been completely made from scratch, even down to the ketchup and worcestershire sauce that went into the various sauces I've made.
I haven't even mentioned the biggest challenge - cooking 20 racks of ribs and having them all ready at once! I can squeeze 5 racks on my Weber at one time using a rib rack and they take close to 5 hours to cook. That means 20 hours of cooking time! Fortunately a friend has the same Weber as me and he's going to let me borrow it, so that will cut the time in half. Guess what I'll be doing all day Saturday? Let me give you a clue, it's going to smell really good in Avon Lake.
Honestly, I am still not very confident in my ability to pull this off, much less compete for the title against the other competitors. But at the end of the day, we will raise a lot of money for a really good cause, so I am happy that I decided to participate. If you are a fan of ribs, I hope you'll consider coming out this Sunday to support a great cause.
So tell me, how do you like your ribs?
- Falling off the bone or a little bite to it?
- Covered in sauce or let the meat and dry rub shine through?
- Smokey or baked in an oven?
- Spicy, sweet, a little of both?
Here we go Dave, I agree with the choice of the Weber and apple or fruit wood because it's the only thing that I use. I smoked 1 baby back rack recently at the same time as I smoked a group of chicken wings. The ribs were rubbed with what I had on hand which was blackening spice mix from Urban Herbs, and it worked pretty well. The ribs came from Foster's at WSM, but were from the New Creation people. The wings were from Plum Creek. All stayed on the Weber in the indirect method with wood pieces on top of the charcoal for smoke. The ribs were the best that I have had in this area. And the best part was it only took 1 1/2 hours.
ReplyDeleteAlas, I unfortunately have no grilling advice for you. I can tell you that I enjoy a spicy, dry rubbed piece of rib. I'll be driving home with a bunch of ladies on Sunday from the Sandusky area that afternoon. Let's see if I can talk them into some BBQ...
ReplyDelete@steve - Have you tried the pork from Bluebird Meadows? Although I like the people at New Creation, I think Bluebird Meadow's meat is much better. It's available at NUFM Crocker Park or I can provide you with direct contact info (sorry, no website I know of)
ReplyDelete@poise - That would be awesome! I did my last test run tonight and my wife told me they were too spicy but I thought they were perfect. Sounds like they'd be right up your alley! When I picked up the ribs tonight, they told me there were only about 50 tickets still available so if you know you are going to come, I suggest calling the chruch ahead of time: (440) 937-5001
@Dave,
ReplyDeleteThat's a great pic.
I'm like you-I prefer to do pork butts, and only do ribs a couple times a year-mainly for tailgating. I think they should be tender, but have a little chew (not fall off the bone). I also like your dry-rub/slather, prefer doing it that way. As you know, I love sauces, but add very little to the finish, and let folks put on as much as they desire.
Ilove how you make all the ingredients. I do mine from scrath, but that means my Carolina contains generic yellow mustard-I don't make the mustard, and THEN add it in , LOL! In my Texas bbq, I add tomato sauce, vinegar, wor sauce and spice, so perhaps that's ketchup a la minute? :-)
Good luck on Sunday-I'm sure that they'll be great!