PORK...Butt or Ribs, What To Cook Them With?

[LeonardK]

I've always thought I just liked strictly salty peppery taste

Watched a Mike Delmarva youtube vid "...how to cook baby back ribs 101" the 3.2.1 method

After cooking some st louis and baby backs on rev flow, I re-heated some in teflon pan with enough brown sugar for just a kettle corn salty-sweet taste. It was good, testing the limits, did it again with more sugar, bad idea, candy sweet, no good for sure.

All this is experimental now
Bought a boneless pork butt 6.21# trim to 4.25# $2.49/# cut it in pcs treating like country ribs no bone more meat marinated in fresh lime juice, going to smoke 3.2.1 method cover in pulverized habanero and salt for 3 hrs, foil covered in frozen cranberry juice not diluted for 2hrs

2 St Louis style ribs: plan to cover in pepper and smoke 3hrs then foil with coconut milk (for cooking) and fresh pineapple all pureed for 2 hrs

1 baby back rack: marinated in lime juice, cook with habanero pepper 3hrs, foil with brown sugar 2hrs


Thinking of something else to put on baby backs with the brown sugar. Todays the marinate day... cooking tomorrow

Got a variety of ideas to try. Yrs ago had great tasting pecan pie I ate with lime juice. Idea for lime marinade then brown sugar.

Coconut and pineapple came to me thinking of smoking fish and shrimp and making coconut wine. Just bought a fresh pineapple yesterday for this but cannot imagine lime juice with coconut so plan leaving that out in spite of the song.

In the baby back ribs 101 vid, Mike mentions using Texas Pepper Jelly expensive about $12 bottle and not easily found in stores, OK, I prefer using single regular natural ingredients anyway, but, this flavor and others they make just give good ideas, this one... peach-cranberry-habanero and it looked good and he also added brown sugar and butter when foiling. I like to be the one in control and vary individual ingredients for the outcome



These got me thinking of tangy fruit stuff to put on ribs like cranberry, apricot especially dried are super tangy and hard to eat, tart cherry preserves, peach puree reduce on stove for flavor, orange liquer aka triple sec for margaritas (try in coffee), ........

Also on the salty side I thought of lime marinade, cover cook w/ pepper 3hrs foil w/ tomato sauce and sage or poultry or Italian seasoning


What's good AND how do you like yours?


Leonard

[towtruck]

I made a bunch of baby racks that had a great fruity flavor. I cannot remember what rub I used but it was not my Cajun stuff. I think it was just a generic rub applied lightly. I crutched with orange juice and had a bbq sauce made with peach jam. Very light tasting ribs with a beautiful fruit flavor. I wrote the recipe down somewhere because they came out so good.

I try and stay away from salty rubs. To me they ruin it. We all have individual tastes and that is what is so cool about cooking for yourself....cook it for you.

[LeonardK]

I've always liked stuff hot, maybe so I will be satisfied and not over-eat

Anyway smoked is great too, been using Serrano but at store weighed amt I think I puree to put on meat, too much pepper paste, so to reduce the amount I picked a hotter pepper from 22k to 325k on scale suggesting I use about 1/15th of 24oz .... 1.6oz of Habanero.

I removed seeds THIS time just trying this out, measured on the gram scale carefully
The weight comparison may NOT be right, but I have to go by something

Some have written describing Habanero as having a fruity flavor. I don't think I can eat enough of this pepper to find that out.


********** CORRECTION ********** That Habanero is just too hot, cooked with some of it and had bad burning indigestion all night, I'm NEVER going to cook with Habanero peppers again!


Now, I think that jar of Smucker's Red Tart Cherry Fruit Spread may be just the thing for the rack of baby back ribs



Here's the Mike Delmarva youtube "How to Smoke Backyard Babyback Ribs 101", the one with Texas Pepper Jelly, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrzwBYBI9w0&t=303s


Hey Towtruck, I remember looking at that odd rev flo smoker you built earlier, bet it channels the heat and smoke most effectively around the meats you cook. Very nice idea


Leonard

[LeonardK]

At crutch Foil time smoking about 250 degrees, will this coconut milk burn????

I use this for making chicken curry but mostly add it at the end. Someone warned me coconut, they are thinking regular fresh would burn on ribs on a reverse flow smoker...

Has anyone cooked with real coconut or this canned coconut milk, applied at foil time and found that it's OK or that it will burn????

I'm planning on putting coconut milk and brown sugar on pork ribs

I just don't want to waste 2 racks of ribs and time to cook, finding out.

[LeonardK]

That coconut milk is not really very good, there's better stuff to cook with, had some on a pc pecan pie, not good


Tasted the Habanero pepper with chips and onion dip, was good and not too hot, this will work very good on smoked meats

I pureed about a pound of Habanero w/ seeds before, cooked w/ tomato sauce for over 20 hrs, couldn't cook heat down to tolerable level, it ate me after I ate it

but this one I'm also trying it on eggs this morning, seems really good


Getting ready to cook those ribs today, maybe grind up some more Habanero, it's the Orange from HEB, it seems tame compared to what I thought previously. I'm not the kinda guy dares people to eat a ghost pepper, just like a good edible satisfying medium heat on food.

[LeonardK]

Foil time at 830 pm, thinking of not foiling just put coconut/pineapple, tart cherry spread, tomato sauce/sage and keep on cooking

I don't really know what I'll miss not foiling

All this crowded up hi as I can get on the 14" rack in 16" pipe and lots of white and gray smoke, like it heavy

Does anybody just coat your ribs and keep on cooking without the foil?

Plenty white smoke but I like the heavy flavor

[LeonardK]

Trying it.... 9pm foil time... brown sugar plus ingredients, except tomato 250 degrees steady

Leonard

[Big T]

I cook ribs quite often without foiling them and they turn out fine. That white smoke is from incomplete combustion, either lack of air flow or too much moisture in your fuel. It can lead to a bitter taste on your food, you want a thin blue smoke, almost translucent. You'll still get plenty of smoke flavor depending on how long you wait to foil it.

[LeonardK]

No pics but: St Louis Style pork ribs
marinated in lime juice
covered in pulverized serrano pepper and salted
smoked 3 hrs
foil time cover in Smuckers Tart Cherry Spread, brown sugar and butter, and coconut milk for cooking
smoked 3 hrs again

This is the one that is really good

Otherwise smoke with serrano pepper and salt

foil with coconut milk and brown sugar

smoke 2- 3 hrs

super tasting pork ribs, be better if they were foiled so ingredients are concentrated kept with ribs

[LeonardK]

These were very tasty peach or tart cherry w/ brown sugar and I put coconut milk over all

I probably should have foiled them .... tried better to bond the ingredients to the ribs... or does it always fall off so easily


Really good with the tart cherry

How do we make the stuff stick better so it does NOT fall OFF?


Leonard

[LeonardK]

Well I still have a few ribs left in freezer, Lime marinade was a good idea and both the coconut and special was the Smuckers Tart Cherry Fruit Spread along with some brown sugar.

I really felt like these ribs needed some really spicy salty kind of rub


When yall cook your pork ribs, what's your favorite rub, and especially if you make one up?

This looks good and was pretty good I just think it needs a good rub maybe something else too

20 years ago a restaurant here, BBQ Man, put out free pork ribs on a buffet at their bar on Wednesdays, all they had on them was some kind of dry spice rub and not that much smoke flavor. They were super. Try the ribs they sell today, they are just are not the same. No flavor.

What kind of dry rub would you want for pork ribs that would be all you cooked it with besides pulverized serrano pepper and a heavy smoke?


It's great to share what we find out cooking, I'm getting better at it.

Leonard