Hey guys, lets talk about smoking beef ribs on your pellet grill.
A lot of people aren’t really familiar with them as much as they are pork ribs, but they’re
just as easy to cook and can come out with some rich flavor.
The texture comes out almost like brisket, and it takes half the time to cook it.
Now first up, you’ll want to trim off the excess fat on that meat side.
Just work your way across the surface, and try remove that fat cap without cutting into
the meat too much.
Beef ribs have enough marbling throughout the meat to keep them nice and juicy on the
smoker without that extra layer.
There’s also some silver skin that runs along that meat side you definitely want to
remove that.
I like to take a boning knife and kind of remove it in small strips.
That way I can control the amount that I’m cutting, and not cut into the meat too much.
Now once you’ve trimmed up the meat side, go ahead and flip them over to the bone side,
now typically with pork ribs you would remove that membrane on that bone side, but with
these I wanna leave that on.
its gonna help with our meat stay together throughout the cook.
So the only thing I really do here, is Ill make a cut on the edge of the bone.
Now what this will do this will help everything kinda pull away from the bone during the cook.
Now for the binder, I like to use olive oil.
This will help all of your seasoning stick and stay on the meat, and make sure you get
all of those edges and sides.
And for the seasoning, I like to go Texas style, which is salt, black pepper and garlic
powder.
But I do like to put the salt on first just so I can have a good visual on how much I’m
putting on there.
Now stay away from table salt.
What you want to go for is either kosher salt or some nice flake salt like I used.
Now make sure you wok everything well into the meat including those edges.
No go ahead and let your ribs sit out while you preheat your grill.
I’m using hickory for this cook, I really want the smoke to come through, and for the
temperature, I like to do my beef ribs at 275.
Now while the grill preheats go ahead and mix up your spritz.
You can totally get creative with this, but I like to use some fresh garlic cloves, and
a bundle of thyme.
Now for the liquid, I wanted to try something a little different than your typical apple
cider vinegar mix.
This time I’m going half and half red wine vinegar, and cranberry juice.
And man, if you find yourself barbequing a lot, having a spay bottle devoted to your
cooking liquids is a must in my eyes.
Now once you’re at temp, go ahead and put the ribs on bone side down.
Doing this will have the bones act as kind of a barrier from the heat, and give you access
to the meat side for spritzing.
Now look, I typically don’t even check in until a few hours have passed.
I really don’t want to open the grill too much and lose a lot of my heat.
Now go ahead and check in around the three hour mark and give them a spritz.
Definitely pay attention to any areas that may look like they’re getting dried out,
and put some juice on them.
Now let them cruise for a couple of more hours, about 5 hours in, you can get an Idea of where
you’re at with the internal temp.
Make sure your probing at the thickest part of the meat and between the bones, and look
while your checking in, go ahead and juice them up.
When the internal temp reaches about 200 degrees, you’re there.
And for this cook, that was about at the seven hour mark.
So another cool way to tell is when you push that probe through the bark, it should feel
like softened butter.
Now comes the real hard part, the waiting.
However, its important that these ribs rest.
I like to wrap them in butcher paper, then store them in a cooler for about half an hour.
The residual heat from the ribs will help the air in the cooler stay nice and humid.
With beef ribs, the bones can tend to overlap, so I like to stand them up, so I can get a
good eye from where I’m cutting, and get a nice uniform rib.
So I was really happy with the smoke ring that came out on these, and guys, if you give
them the time that they need on the smoker, they will be fall off the bone tender.
Man, ribs never get old to me, and big ribs like this.
You could eat one and probably be full.
And man you take that bite and it just shreds off into your mouth, that’s what its all
about.