I often have the urge to document some of my dishes, including ribs and smash burgers. They’re dishes we don’t have often but require a number of steps. Today, making baby backs, I tried to be mindful of the stages and taken pictures accordingly. Behold.

Trim the Ribs

Ribs have a membrane of the interior (bone) side that you can peel off. I have a pairing knife I use; I slide the knife up between the membrane and the bone on a few ribs and then use a paper towel to get a good purchase on it before slowly peeling it off. You know you’re getting good at it when it only takes a pass or two to remove the whole membrane.

Apply a Rub

I do “wet” style ribs with jacked bottled barbecue sauce, so I’m not sure that this step is necessary, but I do it anyway. I’ve been getting a good store-brand rub for pork that isn’t too salty, and we all enjoy pork prepared with it.

Set up the Smoker

I follow two methods of smoking, straight from the Virtual Weber Bullet: the Standard and Minion methods (increasingly the latter). Today, I filled the charcoal chamber with Kingsford briquettes and some smoke wood, added a little bit of lump to round out the kitty, and then lit a small amount of lump in a chimney starter using these starters.

Once the lump was ablaze, I dumped them on top of the unlit coals in the smoker, assembled the rig, and added the meat.

Time to wait.

Smoke the Ribs

The ribs went on around 11:30 am. The smoker slowly came up to about 212 degrees Fahrenheit while we ran errands.

At 14:30, I pulled the lid off of the smoker and flipped the ribs. Looking good! The temp came up to 235 or so after all that oxygen rushed in.

Sauce

I brushed some KC Masterpiece straight from the bottle as the ribs finished. I use the “tear test” to see when they’re finishing up. If the meat separates easily from the bone, you know you’re good to go. These were good to go.

Serve

You don’t have to let the ribs sit before eating them, but it doesn’t hurt. I had a glass of Pinto Grigio to drink with mine.