- This is basically the whole rib cage.
They cut it somewhere right there, close to the middle.
The top part is called a baby back,
'cause it's higher up on the back,
and the bottom part is called the spare rib.
In this case, St. Louis spare rib.
Ever heard the expression, high on the hog?
It has a real history, you know?
One is meatier, and in some people's opinions,
fattier and tastier.
The other leaner, but oh, so softer
and I know which one I usually prefer
but this day the tables were turned.
Which goes to show how every rack of ribs can be different
from one to the next.
It could be the brand, the breed,
or the farm it was raised on.
Which rib is your favorite and why?
Put that in the comments below.
Let's get these ribs trimmed, seasoned and smoked
on the Recteq Pellet Grill
and see which one wins for me today.
It's not what I expected.
Let's fire it up.
All right, Let's get a little bit of Parkay on here
and use this as our binder today.
Now, you don't have to have any kind
of a binder really, and truly.
But I like to use Parkay.
Today's prep process is really, really simple.
The hard part, the long part
is really just gonna be the cooking.
This is OG,
which is just a straight salt, pepper garlic.
I took about a cup of OG
and used three quarters of a cup
of light brown sugar to sweeten it up a little bit.
And that's what we're gonna use today.
And it is pork and I like a little hint of sweet on my pork.
So, really that's all we needed to do.
Just a nice light coat of OG with a little sugar in there.
We're gonna go ahead and let these set here
while I go fire up the Recteq outside.
All right, here we go.
We're gonna pull this rack out a little bit.
There we go.
So we can get our baby backs in the back.
They're a little thicker, so I want them in the back
but I think there's a little tiny bit more heat.
Put the spare ribs right here.
And I would say we are good to go.
All right, let's close the lid up
and get 'er done.
All right, friends, it's been exactly one hour.
It's time to spritz the ribs.
I have a little bit of apple juice here.
I'm gonna pull these out just a little bit
so I can get 'em spritzed.
Get 'em nice and wet.
This helps keep the surface of the rib
from getting too tough or chewy.
All right.
Close it back up.
We're still running at 300 degrees.
We're gonna let it sit there another hour
and see where we're at.
We're sitting at exactly two hours and 10 minutes.
You can tell this part here is cooking a little bit more
than the other side.
So, what I'm gonna do,
I'm actually gonna trade places with them.
Ribs on there really nice.
Put that one on that side.
Put that one on this side.
We're gonna give 'em about another 20 minutes
and then we're gonna wrap 'em
'cause they're looking pretty nice right now.
We're still cruising at 300 degrees.
I think I'll spritz them
before I close the lid one more time.
More spritz.
I've done it about every 30 minutes.
More or less.
All right, we'll be back in 20 minutes.
Give 'em a wrap.
So we already wrapped our baby backs.
We're gonna wrap the pork spare ribs the same way.
I'm gonna take off this last little bone here
in the end.
Because it's just gonna poke the foil anyway,
so we laid a little barbecue sauce underneath the ribs.
You can see where these are pulling back
quite a bit more.
And this is because it's thinner, number one,
and it might have been a little bit hotter
on that side of the pellet smoker.
So we're gonna wrap this up.
I like to do a double seal wrap.
So I've got double foil.
You wanna fold it over one time.
And I'm gonna fold it over one more time.
I call that the double seal.
All right, we're gonna pull the ends over twice as well.
One, two, same thing over here.
One and two.
All right, friends, let's go back out there
to the pellet smoker.
We've been cooking at 300 degrees.
All since we started.
It's been right at two and a half hours right now.
So I'm gonna lower it down to 250.
I'm gonna let 'em finish off a little bit slower,
because if you finish 'em a little slower,
you keep a little more moisture in the meat.
All right my friend,
it's been a little over four hours
and 20 minutes all together
from the minute we put 'em on to the Recteq 1250.
They had a 20 minute rest.
So they could have rested it a little bit longer,
but 20 is plenty.
All right, let's open up the spare ribs first.
They're still laying in their upside down.
That juice is really nice looking.
I have a saying in my competition classes,
"If the juice is good, the rib is good."
Let's see what she looks like.
(exclaims) Look at that pretty rib right there.
Beautiful color.
Nice wet looking rib.
Let's take the baby back out here too.
(exclaims) Look at that.
She looks pretty.
Look how the bones pull back
real nice on the baby back too.
You can see 'em protruding on both sides.
You can see where the skin was starting
to peel off from that heat.
So you can see that that's one of the reasons
I don't like to pull it off on a backyard rib
because it's pretty much gonna fall off anyway
as you can see here.
All right, let's flip them over and see what we got.
Yep, nice and pretty, just like the other ones.
They both look gorgeous.
I don't like a whole lot of heavy sauce on mine.
I just like a nice wet little rib.
Okay, I'm gonna get the baby backs out of the way.
I'm gonna leave those for last.
They're starting to almost fall apart on me.
All right, friends, now the sauce I use today
is another one that I really enjoy a lot.
I use it once in a while.
It's made by Trigger Happy,
and it's called The Red Bandit,
which is a Texas style flavor
but with a little more sweet in there.
Really a great sauce, highly recommend it.
All right, let's slice into these ribs
and see what kind of goodness we got in here.
Man, they slice like butter.
Of course, you know, ArnieTex always says
that a sharp knife also makes the job a lot easier too,
doesn't it?
These look nice.
Very nice.
Not too saucy.
Not too sticky.
Just a good backyard rib.
That's the kind of rib I like.
Let's take a big old bite and see what it looks like.
Do you see that pretty little smoke ring?
That's from the pellet grill.
But that's a beautiful little smoke ring
that we got on there, just gorgeous.
Let's take a bite.
Mm, look at that.
Now, that's a clean bite through rib.
It's super moist, super delicious, super soft.
Just a really, really good rib.
I really like it.
I'm gonna have to take another bite, maybe two.
Mm, wow, really, really good.
The only thing to make that rib better,
like I always say is a nice cold beer.
Today, it's Lone Star.
Cheers.
Now, baby backs are a little tricky to slide.
This one's just about falling apart,
so I'm gonna help it out a little bit.
There we go.
Fell right off.
Check that out.
Here's a cool thing you can do,
you can cut them from the back.
That bone's pretty much gone.
So I'm just gonna slice it right there.
I'm gonna slice this right here like this,
just another trick for you guys.
In this case, we don't have a bunch of barbecue sauce
on here, so it's not gonna really matter.
Man, look at that.
Beautiful smoke ring.
Look at the moisture on there,
just super moist.
I'm just gonna grab one of these right here in the middle.
Look how moist they are, just super moist.
Wowza!
Mm.
Look how soft and juicy this rib is.
It doesn't fall off the bone,
but it pulls off really nice and easy, look at that.
Slides right out.
(chuckles) Oh, man, is that sweet or what?
That is cool.
Look at that.
Just awesome baby back rib.
Now, this was a baby back versus spare ribs.
Which do you like best?
Which one did I like best?
I wanna tell you, they're both really amazing.
And I normally prefer baby back flavor,
but for some reason today
that St. Louis spare rib had better flavor.
And you guys saw me prepare 'em,
we did 'em exactly the same.
But today it seems like the St. Louis spare ribs
had a little more fat in there.
And that fat really, in my opinion, enhanced the flavor
a little bit more.
Tell me which one do you prefer.
Most of the time, what do you normally cook at your house?
Guys and girls thank you for watching, man.
We appreciate it.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
If you guys are interested in my Wild Rub it's pitmaster.us
OG Rub, same website, pitmaster.us.
If you guys want to turn it up in your barbecue game,
I have a class for spare ribs and baby backs
in my online barbecue class at pitmasterclass.us.
Y'all go check it out.
I guarantee you'll like it.
Thanks for watching, folks.
Remember to keep the smoke light and make it work.
Boom!