Mega rib experiment:
My brother lived on a sail boat on the great lakes outside of Detroit.
He came through my house on a motorcycle trip and I cut up a 10lb bag of leg quarters and grilled them on an Old Smokey with mesquite.
That got him hooked.
He went home and without talking to me, bought one of those mini side box smokers. I mean super mini.
I told him that's like me going out and buying a sail boat without talking to him first.
He's hooked though.
right when I had 3 UDS's, he was coming thru and I sent one home with him. I also gave him a modded Brinkmann Gourmet.
The plan was that he was going down to visit Mom in Houston and on the way home, he stops by for the grills, food and apple wood.
On the way south, he had a choice of taking an easterly route or passing down past my house. He decided to pass my house just in case his van had any problems. 10 miles from my exit, his left front wheel bearing went out and he got a hotel room 18 miles from here. He came out here that morning and we used my neighbors air tools to make a pit stop repair and get them back on the road. Click here for the rest of that story.
I was in the middle of cooking a pork butt when he left so all we could do is drool over it and pick pieces of the fat cap off for BBQ candy (he called it a brisket on his website but he's from Detroit... ). I sent him down the road with some mesquite smoked chicken at least.
So, a weekend later, I cooked up a whole bunch of food for his visit. he blasted in after dark and I kept in touch with him so I had a good idea when my meal hit the table. The money shots are after dark but they came out pretty good.
I got 7 racks of BB's for his visit (this was in July).
I didn't cook on my new UDS because I was serving company and I didn't have it all figured out yet.
I used my heavily modded, RF, GC outlaw (more on that another day)
I cooked all the stuff I did on the fourth but I used my toys this time!
I turned it into a big rib rub experiment. I pulled six rib rubs together and went to work
1) My usual rub
3 tablespoons Lowry's seasoned salt
3 tablespoons Brown sugar
1 tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2) BluDawg's rub
1/4 cup paprika
1/4 cup sugar
2 TBL K salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 TBL lemon pepper
1/2 tsp OR to taste Cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground Ginger
1 tsp Mustard Powder
1 tsp celery seed
3) A friends hot rub
4) A friends mild rub
5) Oakridge BBQ Secret Weapon
6) Oakridge BBQ Competition
During the last hour, I basted it with many layers of Roxy's Rib Glaze (you gotta try this stuff!!!)
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup BBQ sauce
1/4 cup apple juice
1/8 cup cider vinegar
1/8 cup bourbon
Combine ingredients and wisk together well. Paint on ribs every 10 to 15
minutes during the last hour of cooking for a nice shiny glaze.
While I'm borrowing recipes, let me throw in bourbon baked beans
Yield. About 12 servings
Ingredients
6 strips of thick cut bacon
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 jalapeņo, or more or less to your taste, coarsely chopped
1 can (15 ounces) red kidney beans, drained and rinsed, or 1/4 pound dried red kidney beans
1 can (15 ounces) white kidney beans, drained and rinsed, or 1/4 pound dried white kidney beans
1 can (15 ounces) black beans, drained and rinsed, or 1/4 pound dried black beans
3/4 cup Kansas City style BBQ sauce
4 tablespoons molasses, any grade
1/4 cup Kentucky Bourbon or Tennessee whiskey
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf (try not to leave this out)
About the beans. You can use all one type of bean. The beans in the photo were made with white kidneys only.
About the bacon. Substitute hot dogs for bacon and you have Beanie Weenies.
About the peppers. Substitute poblanos for bell peppers. Richer flavor and a little heat.
Optional add-ins. Add 1 teaspoon chili powder or ancho powder and/or 1 teaspoon rosemary leaves (not powder). Add 1 tart apple such as Granny Smith or Jonathan, peeled, cubed, and add it with the whiskey.
Do this
Make sure you are using a 2 quart or larger pot or Dutch oven. Cook the bacon over a medium heat. When it begins to brown, flip it, brown the other side, but remove it before it renders all its fat and gets hard. We want bacon that we can cut, not crumble. You will probably need to do the bacon in two batches. And what the heck, go ahead and cook an extra slice or two and eat it when nobody is watching.
Pour off the bacon fat into a coffee cup leaving behind about 2 tablespoons and most of the brown bits dissolved in the fat. When the fat in the cup begins to cool, but before it hardens, move it to a plastic tub and store it in the fridge. You can use this later for cooking onions or veggies. Nothing perks up broccoli like bacon fat!
Add the onions and peppers and cook them until they wilt.
Add everything else.
There are three good ways to cook these beans:
On your grill/smoker. If you have a smoker, put them below the meat for about 3 hours at 225F. They will collect flavorful, smoky drippings from the meat laden with seasoning from the rub. Just be sure they don't burn.
In your oven. Put the pot in your oven uncovered for 2 hours at 250°F. Stir every 30 minutes to make sure they don't burn.
On the stovetop. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat and then turn it back to simmer for 30 minutes without a lid. Stir and scrape the bottom with a wooden spoon every 10 minutes to prevent burning and sticking. Try to keep the bay leaf submerged.
Remove the bay leaf. Taste and adjust the flavors as you see fit. If you like it spicier, add hot sauce. Add more molasses if you like it sweeter, or salt if you think it needs it. Cook it longer if you want it thicker, or add water if you want it thinner.
#10 can, do 2.5 times the above recipe. Full size pan required.
Pics before rib racks
I coated the ribs with Worcestershire, added rub and slammed it shut.
All the ribs were awesome, thanks to Roxy's glaze.
1 My usual rub - came out great.
2 BluDawg's rub - came out real close to mine. kind of a mild version of mine.
3 My friends hot rub - I will be making more of this but there were 2 from Michigan who thought it was a little spicy.
4 My friends mild rub - too mild.
5 Oakridge BBQ Secret weapon. - great
6 Oakridge BBQ Competition - The best. I was surprised. I didn't take these rubs seriously. (side note, KCMIKE gave me 2 lbs of rub to explain that last comment. I bought his sample packs and threw them to the side. The only reason I used them was to get more variety in the cookout)
OakridgeBBQ "Competition" rub beat all of them, hands down.
We all had a blast, sampling all the ribs until we hurt.
A full story of the day can be found on my brothers site
Now for the pics!
Ribs, cast iron scalloped taters, cast iron corn bread, Asparagus with cheese, ABTs and Bourbon baked beans
