What kind of Ribs should I buy for Barbeque Ribs?

vicwatson

I bought bacon ribs before cooked them slow with barbeque sauce in the oven for about 1.5 hours and they were tough, salty and horrible.

Had I the wrong ribs, and I certainly cooked them wrong????

What should I be buying and how to cook?

TIA

Gloomtastic!

You know what a pork chop looks like? Well the rib is the bit of bone and flesh that goes from the top of the pork chop to the end of the eh, rib.

Bacon ribs would be ribs that have been steeped in brine (salt water). That's why they tasted salty.

Go to any butcher and ask for spare ribs, or better still, belly pork - they have more fat on them.

Marinade them in whatever BBQ sauce you want for a few hours, or overnight is best. Then place them in a roasting tin, cover in foil and cook them in a low oven - 140c - for a couple of hours or longer. Remove the foil for the last hour.

If you have a BBQ, put the cooked ribs above on hot coals for five minutes to char them and serve with coleslaw, corn on the cob and baked potatoes.

Dizzyblonde

Bacon ribs are only for boiling and eating with cabbage - I had some once that were barbecued (not by me!) and they were awful.
You need pork ribs, cooked either in the oven as Gloomatastic said, or on the barbecue. If you're going to cook them on the barbecue you should put them into a big pot of water, bring it to the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes then drain them, coat them with bbq sauce and finish them on the barbecue. If you barbecue them without boiling them they'll go dry and you'll hardly get any meat off them.

Markcheese

Only my opinion but ye're all WRONG, WRONG,WRONG .... Bacon ribs are the bomb especially on a barbie..... You do need to soak and then boil them for a bit, a good fruity bar-b-que sauce and finish on the grill,(or in the oven)
Mind you the other ribs above sound good too

Gloomtastic!

Markcheese wrote: »

Only my opinion but ye're all WRONG, WRONG,WRONG .... Bacon ribs are the bomb especially on a barbie..... You do need to soak and then boil them for a bit, a good fruity bar-b-que sauce and finish on the grill,(or in the oven)
Mind you the other ribs above sound good too

Boil them in Cola with some lemon zest, bay leaves and peppercorns. Might make them a little bit tasty.

foodaholic

Cooked some spare ribs in the slow cooker last week in low for 8 hrs and finished them on the charcoal bbq. Really nice

Gloomtastic!

I know what we're having for dinner tomorrow night now!

Layinghen

Always ask your butcher for belly ribs when buying ribs. They have more meat on them. To have the meat fall off the bone after barbecuing, put the ribs in a large pot, bring to the boil then simmer for 2 hours. Leave to cool then coat in your favourite sauce and barbecue away. Ribs can be done the day before the barbecue and kept in the fridge over night.

vicwatson

Always ask your butcher for belly ribs when buying ribs

So that's Pork Belly Ribs and not Pork Belly I assume?

Layinghen

Yes pork belly ribs. I just ask for fresh rib and say it must be belly rib.

gerryk

Belly or back ribs... doesn't matter that much. I would do them in the oven at a low heat, and covered in foil for about an hour and a half. Then get your grill going, and chuck them on there, mopping with sauce and turning regularly, for about 20 minutes, to get a nice char and glaze on them.

Pabmac

Lidl vacuum packed ribs. Perfect, they come in sauce too. Slap them on the BBQ until done. Very tender and juicy.

Gloomtastic!

Pabmac wrote: »

Lidl vacuum packed ribs. Perfect, they come in sauce too. Slap them on the BBQ until done. Very tender and juicy.

Because they're already cooked, you can also do them in the microwave. That's just too easy!

vicwatson

Pabmac wrote: »

Lidl vacuum packed ribs. Perfect, they come in sauce too. Slap them on the BBQ until done. Very tender and juicy.

Nah, wanna do my own sauce for them, plus they are a rib-off (excuse the pun:)) price at €3.99, same in Tesco etc

rubadub

vicwatson wrote: »

price at €3.99, same in Tesco etc

How much should you be paying in a butchers per kilo?

I remember getting premarinated raw ribs in tesco at half price. I did 2 racks but ended up eating nearly the whole lot. Scabby amount of meat on them. It was dearer than my local Chinese takeaways. For 5.60-5.80 I get a huge amount in the Chinese, perfectly falling off the bone, so I had given up on the idea of cooking them.

vicwatson

rubadub wrote: »

How much should you be paying in a butchers per kilo?

I remember getting premarinated raw ribs in tesco at half price. I did 2 racks but ended up eating nearly the whole lot. Scabby amount of meat on them. It was dearer than my local Chinese takeaways. For 5.60-5.80 I get a huge amount in the Chinese, perfectly falling off the bone, so I had given up on the idea of cooking them.

Good question, there was a time not too long ago that no one ate ribs and they were dirt cheap to buy in the butchers.

I said they were 3.99 in Tesco but infact they are 4.99, not good value, they are quite delicious I must say but at a fiver a pop, meh.

They has them on special at 3 for 10.00 before and I filled up the chest freezer !

rubadub

Just looking on tesco.

these look cooked, 420g for €5, and thats a special offer!, I have weighed the ones I get in the chinese and they can be over 600g, including sauce, but I get far less bones than on the tesco ones. I pay 5.40-5.80 in the chinese places near me
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=277599264


800g €5 here
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=277599154


Frozen ones 3 for €7 500g each
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=271799198

vicwatson

rubadub wrote: »

Frozen ones 3 for €7 500g each
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=271799198

Ever tried these?

vibe666

any time I do BBQ ribs, it's always a full belly rack or pork ribs with all the meat on but skin off, cooked low and slow in the oven, basted every 30 minutes.

takes about 4-5 hours to do properly, but it's soooo very worth it.

Heres how I do mine, there's a thread on them somewhere but i can't be arsed to find it.

1 full rack of pork ribs with all the meat on but skin off, not stripped (makes all the difference)

olive oil & pepper to coat1-

half a bag of muscavado sugar
about a cup of red wine vinegar
same of tomato sauce or 1/4 cup of tomato puree
2 heaped teaspoons of english mustard
half a cup of honey
3 tablespoons of worcestersostershire sauce
1-2 teaspoons of smoked paprika

turn your oven up to 220c to preheat and then as you put the ribs in, turn down to 120c and leave it there.

okay, so dead simple, but takes time to do it right but so unbelievably worth it you'll never do them any other way.

so, find a nice big tray to lay your ribs flat in, cutting off the end if required. the easiest way i've found is to use the big catering sized thick disposable foil trays because the sauce tends to get carbonised onto the cooking tray and this way you can just throw them out when done. i learnt from experience to double up the trays and use two as occasionally a pointy bit of rib can pierce the tray and if there is only one it'll leak sauce into the bottom of your oven and quite often, you'll only find out when your kitchen fills with smoke!

anyway, i digress...

drizzle the ribs with olive oil and season with plenty of fresh black pepper (no salt), then throw them in the top of the pre-heated oven and turn down the heat immediately after closing the door.

give them 10-15 minutes until you start to see the sticky up bits turning in colour and whip them out quickly (so the heat doesn't escape the oven and turn them over and then back in again for 10-15 minutes more.

then throw all the other ingredients into a bowl and mix up ready to baste the ribs.

from now on, you're going to quickly pull out the ribs every 20-30 minutes and turn & baste them and back in the oven again.

make sure you glob big thick amounts of the marinade on top so it pools and can thicken up and caramelise in the oven. some of the marinade will be leaking off and cooking out on the bottom (and eventually burning) but just mop up what you can before it goes too dark and reuse it on the ribs as you're basting.

it takes 6-8 good bastes to get the proper coating on the ribs, but trust me its worth it and the meat will fall off the bone. once they're done, just cut them into strips in between each rib with a good knife and baste some of the cooked out marinade onto the fresh cut sides and you're all done.

also, if you have some extra marinade and you're doing chicken wings, try cooking out the marinade in a pan and tossing a batch of freshly cooked wings in it.

the beer revolu

vibe666 wrote: »

any time I do BBQ ribs, it's always a full belly rack or pork ribs with all the meat on but skin off, cooked low and slow in the oven, basted every 30 minutes.

takes about 4-5 hours to do properly, but it's soooo very worth it.

Heres how I do mine, there's a thread on them somewhere but i can't be arsed to find it.

Do you mean the whole belly with the ribs attached?
I'm a bit confused as belly ribs don't have any skin - they are the ribs beneath the pork belly.

vibe666

the beer revolu wrote: »

Do you mean the whole belly with the ribs attached?
I'm a bit confused as belly ribs don't have any skin - they are the ribs beneath the pork belly.

yep, the whole thing, a complete rack of ribs + belly pork, everything except the skin.

damn, now I'm hungry.

i usually get mine in the butchers or supermarket. you may have to order them in, depending on who yuo go tpo, but it can usually be gotten within a couple of days for 20-30 quid, depending on the size, but you'll feed 8 hungry horaces for that.

vicwatson

rubadub wrote: »

Frozen ones 3 for €7 500g each
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=271799198

Tried these at weekend and were meh. Only alright.

rubadub

vicwatson wrote: »

Tried these at weekend and were meh. Only alright.

I had never tried them before (missed your earlier question). With most of these ribs I find very little meat on them.

You can try and tell how much is there from the protein content. It said 100g has 21.4g protein, which seemed way too high.

Then on the other nutritional info listing it says "A typical serving of 3 ribs (deboned) contains". And by comparing figures the 100g figure was also deboned values.

vicwatson

rubadub wrote: »

I had never tried them before (missed your earlier question).

No sorry, I just meant the post for anyone else thinking of trying them, I personally wouldn't recommend them, they were a little flavourless and a little chewy, not the worst mind (the worst were the last ones I cooked !!)

Guill

I did these beauties last week. Got a recipe for a Carolina rub from the net, rubbed it in and left it overnight. Then put them in the BBQ with one ring on at half for 7 hours, about 110 degree C. Meat fell off the bone. Had a pan of water in the bbq too. Only problem was that the meat that was directly over the low flame got charred. next time i'll use a tray of water and place it over the flame to disperse the heat.





Nice spicy Guacamole and home made chips to boot. Best after bog feed a man ever ate.

Edit: Pork, not Bacon btw.

vibe666

Got a small bit of bone in pork belly and just used a basic dry rub on it there this evening. Well be going on the bbq low and slow tomo for a good few hours.

nothing fancy in the rub, just half a cup of dark muscavado sugar as a base, and a tablespoon each of smoked paprika, black peppercorns, pink rock salt and garlic powder. basically just looked at a few rub recipes and combined them using whatever I had available in the cupboard.

Markcheese

vibe666 wrote: »

Got a small bit of bone in pork belly and just used a basic dry rub on it there this evening. Well be going on the bbq low and slow tomo for a good few hours.

nothing fancy in the rub, just half a cup of dark muscavado sugar as a base, and a tablespoon each of smoked paprika, black peppercorns, pink rock salt and garlic powder. basically just
looked at a few rub recipes and
combined them using whatever I had
available in the cupboard.

Sounds nice... haven't had belly pork
Off the grill in years,was thinking about it this morning and now this... It's a sign ...
If you have a bit of star anise at home break it up and through it onto the pork... Love it with pork...

vibe666

it's on the BBQ now since about 10:30am.

it's a nice big 6 burner BBQ (this one, but the 6 burner version which doesn't seem to be available on amazon.co.uk now), so I put a metal loaf tin full of boiling water on the top rack above the 2 burners that are on, and the pork is over to the side on the top rack away from the direct heat.

temp is perfect with one burning (furthest away) on high and the next one on low.



and here it is peeping out at me.



should be perfect in about 4-5 hours from now.

vibe666

and just in case you were wondering how they turned out...



i made a BBQ sauce to baste them with and they came out with a lovely bark on the outside and moist and juicy inside as you can see.



i normally do them in the oven for about 4-5 hours, but this was much better and not a huge amount more work all in, just got to spend a bit more time out in the sun doing it instead of the kitchen. :cool:

would be better with a whole belly, but beggars can't be choosers.

Markcheese

Not trying to rain on anyone's parade and probably spouting heresy but what's the difference between cooking the ribs on a gas bar-b-que with a pan of water for steam , and doing them in oven (with or without water or covered in tinfoil ) and then either finishing them on a dry heat in the oven or back on the barbie ...
I do get the stand out the back in the sun all day can in hand thing ....

Guill

I fint the electric oven can dry pork out too much. I have used pans of water in them too though. Off the gas BBQ you get a different taste. You can also throw in some wet wood chip too for a smokey flavour.