- Like a moth to a flame burned by the fire.
My love is blind. Can't you feel my desire?
Brent, to what do I desire?
- Ribs.
- Ribs!
Welcome to ribs episode glaze.
Let's do this.
- Prime Time's back baby.
(excited sounds)
- So today we are going to do six kinds of ribs
and we are going to be smoking them
in our new smoke house (clattering)
right here,
but what we're going to be concentrating on today
is not the smoking aspect,
but what goes on for the glaze.
And that's why we're going back over to Brent.
- Hey guys.
Yeah, we got a whole production team.
It's pretty cool.
We learned how to smoke from Rodney Scott,
the king himself.
- The king.
- So we got our cooking techniques down.
Today is all about finding the best base glaze.
It's just smoking meat and sugar.
So today we have six different sugars
that we're going to try.
Starting off, agave,
a local maple syrup,
and regular old table sugar.
It's in almost every barbecue sauce recipe,
but we're just going to put it to the test.
- Next we have Sky High Farm's very own local honey.
Support them.
We have the best soda created by man, beast or god,
Dr. Pepper. And then the boss says we have to do it.
We're going to do Fireball.
Fireball.
- A lot of people put whiskey,
but whiskey doesn't have any sugar in it.
So, you know what does have sugar in it?
Fireball.
- We want to see which is the best glaze obviously.
So we're going to use these same kind of ribs for each one.
For us, there's no substitution for country style ribs.
- We're only going to add our glaze at the end.
We're going to break this down, get the ribs cooking,
make some sauces.
Okay. So step one is to season our rib.
We want to control our variables.
So we're going to season all of the ribs
with a dry rub exactly the same.
- So we do a rub for most meats of just salt and pepper.
A little bit of paprika will help
give it a little bit of depth
and give every one of those sugars
a little like kick in the pants
to make sure it's really going.
- Our man Rodney Scott said paprika, paprika, paprika.
Ben's on it, man.
- That's about halfway full,
maybe a little bit over.
Add that in,
Give it the old Brent Young shake.
- Alright, great.
Let's season our ribs.
(playful music)
- Alright, so we're going to season these pretty heavily.
- Rodney Scott says to not season heavily.
- So you don't really want to season heavily. (Ben growls)
- I personally like to do a little sprinkle over them.
- You want to.
- But don't.
- My heart always tells me to season heavily,
but I trust Rodney more than my heart
if I'm honest with you. - Kind of a good idea.
You might have noticed
country ribs are not the most beautiful of cuts,
but they are the meatiest
and fattiest ribs that come on the pig.
That's why they're our favorite.
Our other choices,
spare ribs, AKA St.Louis ribs
or also baby back ribs.
Think the other thing about country ribs is that
because it's a muscle that's doing more work,
it's also way porkier than the baby back
or the spare ribs would be.
So you get a ton of flavor coming from that,
which means that you can actually have
a really strongly flavored sauce as well.
- Brent, let's get these loaded up.
What temperature will you want to smoke out today?
- So we're keeping everything the same,
220 all the way through.
We'll expect about two, two and a half hours for the cook.
What kind of wood are you using to smoke that?
Most barbecue places use oak.
We're using chips.
This is our smoker microwave.
Not the same thing.
It's a bastardized version. We are in New York City.
Hickory gives a very nice clean smoke.
We mix it with a little bit of cherry and applewood.
We like a little bit of fruit wood in there
because it gives better color.
Fruit wood burns faster,
it gives a little bit hint of a sweeter smoke
as opposed to oak.
- So Brent got these loaded up in here.
We're going to be smoking for a couple hours.
So let's go start working on all of our glazes.
- Sugar time!
- Sugar time.
So we're going to make a reduction of our Dr Pepper
and our god's gift.
When we're talking about cooking and cooking temperatures,
we want to keep it below the burning point.
So we're reducing this for two things.
We want to cook the alcohol out of it,
but we also want to reduce it so it's a glaze,
but we need to be very, very cautious
not to burn the sugars in it.
(Ben squeals)
This one is for me,
we'll reduce the other three.
- Okay. I'll do this.
- Let me tell you a little story about Dr. Pepper
while we're pouring Dr Pepper.
My hometown is Southwest Virginia.
Roanoke, star city of the south what's up.
We have a giant neon Dr Pepper sign
on top of one of the buildings.
And so a lot of people
un-ironically wear the "I'm a Pepper" shirt
and we drink a f***** insane amount of Dr Pepper in Roanoke.
The reason that this anecdote now applies
to the conversation we're having
is why are we using Dr. Pepper
rather than what we originally planned,
which was Coca Cola is because f*** you
we're going to use Dr. Pepper
if we're going to be using high fructose corn syrup.
- All right. So it's been about 30 minutes.
The Fireball actually reduced quite nicely.
- Yeah.
It's sticking to the pot.
- The smell is literally intoxicating.
Christmas mixed with college.
Dr. Pepper still working,
still reducing same time, but very, very liquidy.
- So for simple syrup,
all you're doing is one-to-one water to sugar
and then you just heat it.
And then you're just whisking.
Brent, what is your favorite cocktail
that has simple syrup in it?
- Margaritas man.
- That is the correct answer.
- Fireball margaritas. Yeah!
(playful music)
- Oh my god.
- Chef pour, chef pour, chef pour.
- All right. So the syrup looks good.
Oh yeah baby.
- Okay Brent.
We have our six types of glazes.
So this is just the straight up, Sky High Farm honey.
Super thick. We didn't heat it at all.
- Very sweet.
- Really sweet.
- But really balanced.
- Alright.
Let's try the Square Deal Farm maple syrup.
- Maple syrup is not quite as thick as the honey.
(playful music)
- That's really good.
- Not quite as sweet.
- Holy god. That's a really good maple syrup.
- Agave. Really nice consistency.
- Yeah. About like the maple syrup.
About as sweet. Very similar.
Just doesn't have the maple, distinct maple flavor.
- All right Fireball. Here we go.
- Here we f****** go.
- Oh that's thick baby.
Not quite as thick as the honey,
but right on par with the maple syrup and the agave.
That is surprisingly good.
- I'm done cause I'm feeling pretty good about the Fireball.
- I was not feeling very good about the Fireball,
now I'm feeling very good about the Fireball.
- Yeah.
- It really tastes exactly like the Fireball candy.
This is way better than it should be.
Sorry, Mr. Fireball,
but you actually made a really good product.
- Yeah. When you cook all the badness out of your product,
they taste pretty good.
- Alright. Here we go.
Reduced Dr Pepper.
- Alright.
(playful music)
Just brutal.
- Nothing subtle.
- No
- About that. It is very aggressive.
More aggressive than Fireball.
- Fireball was delicate.
- Right. I was excited about these 23 different flavors,
but now I'm kind of turned off and scared from all that.
- Yeah. It looks like an abyss now too,
which I'm starting to feel like
is kind of a metaphor for something.
- Last but not least.
We have our simple syrup.
- Good coating.
Sticking to the spoon.
- Yeah. That's sugar water.
I feel like the Fireball
is actually bringing the most flavor
to the pork right now.
I would say toss up between Fireball and the maple syrup.
- That's where I was going to go.
I don't know, it's also,
these are going to be the stickiest.
These two.
- The two that we're talking about like being in the front,
the honey. The honey is going to be up there as well.
I like them to be sticky.
And I liked that you have to lick your fingers.
That's kind of part of the fun.
Here's the thing.
I'll just say who it isn't.
Is agave and Dr Pepper.
- Right. Most recipes that also call for soda,
you're usually cooking the pork in the soda.
So you're getting all of that sugar into the meat
before you grill it.
So I think that's the whole advantage of using soda.
I don't think it's actually going to work as a glaze.
- So these have been in for about two hours
and 20 or 30 minutes.
At 220 degrees.
There's still like some good texture to them.
They're not broken down at all, which we don't want.
So it seems like a good time.
We're going to pull them,
we're going to glaze them,
put them back in for another 20 or 30 minutes,
cut them and then we're going to eat way too many ribs.
B, two hours and 20 minutes later, what do you think?
- Boom, look fantastic.
- I drafted Fireball on my first round draft pick.
- I'm going to go hard and heavy with all of these.
- Yeah.
- You're first round draft pick maple syrup,
- Maple syrup looking good, looking good.
- Looking good,
but actually not covering quite as nicely
as the Fireball.
- Sky High Farm honey.
Oh this is thick baby.
From the great state of honey.
- All right. Agave, also going on in
almost exactly like maple syrup.
- Yeah.
Sugar exclamation point.
(upbeat music)
I mean, I'm feeling pretty good about this one.
- Think about your sugar ribs?
- Yeah. I think my sugar water ribs
are going to be pretty tasty.
- Oh man. Dr. Pepper, what did you do?
- All right.
- What'd you do?
- Apparently we needed to reduce the Dr. Pepper.
I feel like it's only fair to Dr. Pepper
that Dr. Pepper maybe gets a second glaze after 15 minutes.
- I think that's fair.
And I guess it's not the same consistency and I'm sorry,
but we don't have all day to just boil Dr Pepper.
- Great. My hard work's done.
(upbeat music)
- They're all glazed. They're all marked.
I'm going to throw them back in here
and give them another 30 minutes.
And then we're going to pull a bunch of ribs out
and eat ourselves silly.
(upbeat music)
All right. (clattering)
They look really f****** good.
A little texture, but these are gonna be good.
Fireball.
- Man. These look pretty good.
Everything looks fantastic.
And everything, except for Dr. Pepper looks really great.
The Dr. Pepper doesn't look like it actually really glazed.
I think I still have my money on Fireball,
but let's start with sugar. It's the most basic.
Oh baby, that's a juicy rib.
- Alright. Cheers to the sugar ribs.
- Sugar rib.
- How are you going to hate? - I mean right off the bat,
the only thing that is lacking
is all of the other flavor components
that you're getting from a barbecue sauce
and it tastes super clean.
This is a delicious rib.
- All right. I feel like by rib three,
we're going to want to take a nap.
Man let's see.
This is what is great about country-style ribs.
Look at how much meat you get on a rib.
- Agave. Here we go.
- Alright.
Pretty good.
That actually did caramelize a little bit.
It has a deeper nose
than it had just trying it plain.
- I'd say a little bit more similar to brown sugar
as compared to white sugar.
- Honey? F****** pumped for this one.
Ooh it's sticky.
I love the color on the honey.
And for anyone who's going to write a note in the comments
about how the ribs aren't falling apart,
that's kind of the point.
We like texture in our ribs.
So does Rodney Scott.
So as Rodney Scott goes, so go I.
On its own, a little too sweet.
- Yeah?
- I feel like the texture is perfect.
- That's way in the lead for me.
I really like it.
- Alright honey in the lead.
Ooh. This is your huckleberry.
- Yeah, no, this is my huckleberry.
This is my baby boy.
Pretty good.
- I liked honey the best,
now this is definitely the best.
- They're neck and neck for me.
It needs more time,
which I think the honey is just like,
"I'm ready to go right now."
- Yeah.
- But this is really, really great.
- Dr. Pepper.
Only because we got to save the Fireball for last.
- Because I can never talk trash
of my hometown hero Dr. Pepper,
I'm going to say we didn't reduce it enough
to make it sticky enough.
So I'm going to say user error.
All 23 flavors just kind of like narrowed into one.
I don't know if I would reduce it as much,
but I would maybe add gelatin.
So I think we do that or our cornstarch slurry.
- The old cornstarch slurry.
Here we go Fireball.
Our least favorite son who became our favorite son.
- Oh, interesting.
- Really mellowed out.
- Yeah.
Huh?
- Huh?
Fireball you mysterious-
- Every time I think I know you,
you show me another side of yourself.
- You know when we tasted it
and we were so excited about it,
all of that's gone.
- Yeah.
- Cinnamon doesn't come through at all.
- Yup. It's really not that sweet.
The alcohol's a little abrasive.
- It's about there with agave.
We're doing this old school rules.
Who's winning for best texture?
- Best texture I gotta go honey.
- I'm going honey as well.
- It's exactly what you want.
Sticks to your hand,
super delicious, mixes well with the fat, it's perfect.
- What about taste?
Where are you going?
- Taste. I'm going maple.
- Alright. I'm going honey.
- You're going honey?
- I really love the taste.
And it just reminded me so much
of other great things I've had.
- I got to say,
I don't think I've ever had a maple rib before.
Like the smoked rib.
I thought it was the best version
of sweet maple smoked pork flavor.
- Maybe is appearance.
Where are you going with appearance?
- Ooh.
The only ones that didn't look great
in my opinion, were sugar and Dr. Pepper.
I thought the other four looked almost identical.
- Honey won all three categories for me.
Yeah. I feel like it wins the beauty pageant,
the personality tests.
And you know it wants the world peace.
So you can't go wrong.
- I'm going to say honey close second.
I just prefer the maple.
I thought it was fantastic.
It was just probably a new flavor for me.
I really loved that.
- So one thing we should hit on
before we go is we think these are the best ways
for smoking ribs,
but there are plenty of ways to cook ribs.
You can definitely do them in foil in your oven.
That's the number one way we do it here in New York city.
Not everyone has a backyard with a giant smoker.
You can do them on the barbecue,
which I know you love.
- Love a Weber.
- Yeah.
So this is just one way to look at how to get the best rib.
We thought it would be Fireball, it was not.
We thought it might be Dr. Pepper, it was not.
It was honey and maple.
It was always honey and maple.
Who are we kidding?
Now we're going to eat these ribs.
(playful upbeat music)