BBQ Billy's Grumblings

i love barbecue, and that's just the start.

Derbycue Ribs

(download)

Today was three things:

  1. The kentucky derby (which i didn't watch), 
  2. Mother's day eve (without my wife and mother of my children present),
  3. A damn fine day to barbecue some loin backs (see above two points). 

Thinking way ahead to mid-august when I plan to compete again on the bbq circuit, I thought I'd try a test run on the smokey mountain with my newfound knowledge of 'cue techniques over the last couple months. Read on for a rundown of my approach this time around:

  • Supermarket loin backs, relaively uniform in size and not super thick. 2.2 lbs each. Pretty nice slabs from Price Chopper today... surprising!
  • Rubbed with my BBQB shake (rub w/brown & white sugar)
  • Smoked with frontier hardwood charcoal and 4 chunks apple
  • Temp hovered between 200-240, generally at 210. 
  • Smoked untouched for 3 hrs and 45 min
  • Sauced with my modified version of Mike's 17th Street sauce (molasses instead of brown sugar, soy sauce instead of worcestershire, burnt ends instead of bacon bits, white wine vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar, no green pepper)
  • Contined to smoke for 45 minutes with sauce on
  • Pulled after a total of 4 hrs 30 minutes, dusted a bit of shake on top, wrapped in foil and kept in cooler (warmer) for 2 hrs

And here is my analysis:  

  • Meat was perfectly tender... exactly what I'm looking for: pulled away from bone easily, but not falling off. 
  • Nice smoke ring coloring going down a good 1/4+ inch
  • Smoke level was too high. I'm attributing this to the Frontier charcoal brand but its possilbe I should have wrapped these earlier and kept cooking on the smoker. 
  • Bark was tasty, but a bit overdone. Should have done them sauced for 20 minutes instead of 45 minutes.
  • Smoke was too intense, but rub and sauce was a nice combination. 
  • For the sauce I need to go back to worcestershire, and rice wine vinegar. Burnt ends were fine, but bacon was likely better last time. Though I liked molasses instead of brown sugar. Ultimately I'd like this to be a thinner sauce... should try with 3/4 cup ketchup. Or not Muir Glen's ketchup which is super thick. 

So overal these were super tasty and I thoroughly enjoyed them... but we're not at perfection yet. While I did my fair share of gorging on these bad boys for dinner tonight, I still have a full rack leftover. Holler if you want leftovers!