BBQ Baby Back Ribs

I love baby back ribs. I don't get them often enough, and I don't feel like I have the skill set to make them myself. I keep trying ribs at various restaurants' ribs and without fail, I'm horribly disappointed. I vow every time I'll never try another restaurants' ribs, and then I do and kick myself for it. I've been to the Corner Stable - Baltimorons rave about this place - and I thought their ribs were too sweet. They were tender, but I don't want dessert as my main meal!!

The only restaurant whose ribs I'll eat is called The Charred Rib which has THE best ribs I've ever had. If I want ribs, I resigned myself that I just have to go to The Charred Rib. Their ribs are fall-off-the-bone-tender (I can eat them with a fork, no problem) and moist with a sauce that is not too sweet or too smokey or too spicy. Their sauce is a perfect combination of the three, a very difficult combination to find, IMHO.

Well, we can't always afford the time to go to The Charred Rib, so Steve and I thought that maybe we should try our own. A few years ago, I tried an Alton Brown recipe while we were still living in the townhouse... epic fail. They were dry and tasteless. I threw them out on the spot and went to bed hungry they were so bad. I had to have done something wrong because the reviews for the recipe were all very positive. That was the first and only time I'd tried making ribs, and basically decided that the only way I was going to get ribs was by going to The Charred Rib, which basically meant almost never.

Fast forward a few years, and now we have kids so we have even LESS time to go to The Charred Rib. What's worse, Steve and I have been both jonesing for some ribs. This time, was Steve's turn to try his hand at ribs. He did some research, and tried a mesquite rub we had in the spice cabinet and used the cooking technique in an Emeril recipe. The results were tasted last night.

The mesquite rub = fail. The flavor didn't penetrate the ribs at all, and what flavor was on the outside tasted nothing like how it smells. In fact, it tasted horrible. I will be throwing this out of our spice arsenal.

The Hunts BBQ sauce = win. This was a dartboard purchase, and I'm happy to report that I was happy with it. What does a dartboard purchase mean? It means that I just shut my eyes and reach for a random BBQ sauce on the grocery shelf. Why? Because I've not been able to find the Jim Beam bourbon BBQ sauce I really like in years..... But I think this Hunts version is pretty good and will stick with it until I taste another one that I like.

The cooking technique = better than my attempt by far. They were tender, but not really moist and by no means were they "fall off the bone" like The Charred Rib's are.

We still threw out the batch of ribs, but we are not totally discouraged like last time. Since it's my turn to try my hand at ribs (again), I have some lessons learned to work with.

1. Pork requires a marinade no matter what. Except for bacon, every variety of pork I've ever eaten seems to be flavorless and dry unless it's marinated in advance. One of Emeril's recipes suggests putting a rub on the ribs, letting them sit for a day, and then marinating them in beer for another day. I think this technique has potential.

2. The rub will NOT be that horrible mesquite. Every rib rub I've ever seen includes some form of brown sugar, so I will look for something like that. Again, Emeril's one recipe looked intriguing.

3. The ribs were pre-cooked in the oven at a nice low 275 temp, were set to sit overnight, and then grilled. Even though the temp was low, I'm wondering if we cooked them too long in the oven which dried them out some. I've also wondered if there is some other technique that I should consider to make them fall-off-the-bone tender (boil?? slow cooker??). The pre-cook then grill technique is definitely headed in the right direction, though.

4. I will buy a half rack of ribs (if possible) instead of a full rack to waste less until we get our flavors and cooking technique down!

I'm so jonesing for some Charred Rib ribs now... ::sigh::