Somewhere east of Jackson on I-40, Jack announced from the back seat that the dry ribs in Memphis were a ten and the wet ribs were "a seven with napkins." Nora, who believes sauce is the whole point of ribs, told him he was wrong. I said they were both good, which satisfied nobody. Ryan didn't weigh in until we crossed the Tennessee River, and then he said he'd settle it by making them himself.
So the Saturday after we got home, he did. He used the Weber kettle instead of the pellet grill, because the ribs Jack crowned in Memphis came off a charcoal fire, cooked hotter and faster than Ryan usually goes, with a little chew left in them that low-and-slow ribs don't have. Dry ribs there come to the table with a crust of spices and no sauce at all. Sauce is something you have to ask for.
Ingredients
- 2 racks baby back ribs, about 5.3 pounds total
- 3 tablespoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon coarse black pepper
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon each dry mustard, celery seed, dried oregano and dried thyme
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt, added last (see step 1)
- Mop: 1 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup water and 1 tablespoon of the rub
- A bottle of sweet barbecue sauce, for Nora
How Ryan cooks them
- Mix every spice except the salt and set 2 tablespoons aside in a small bowl. That's the finishing dust. Stir the salt into the rest.
- Pull the thin membrane off the bone side of each rack, using a paper towel for grip. Cut each rack in half so all four pieces fit on the cool side of a 22-inch kettle. Coat them with the salted rub and let them sit 30 minutes.
- Light a full chimney of briquettes, pour it onto one side of the kettle and set a fist-size chunk of hickory on the coals. Put the lid on with the top vent over the ribs. Aim for 275 to 300°F at the grate. Ryan trusts the ambient probe from his wireless set, clipped next to the meat, more than any lid thermometer.
- Ribs go bone side down on the cool side. Every 30 minutes, mop them and swap the pieces closest to the fire with the ones farthest away. Add 10 or 12 unlit briquettes to the coals at about the 90-minute mark.
- Start checking at 2 1/2 hours. They're done when you lift a half rack from one end with tongs and the surface cracks, and the meat between the bones reads 195 to 200°F. Pork is safe at 145, but ribs need to get close to 200 before the meat lets go of the bone. Ours took 3 hours.
- Mop one last time, shake on the finishing dust and give them 10 more minutes with the lid on.
The mop was the part that surprised me. Every time the vinegar goes on, it softens the top layer of rub, and as the water cooks off it glues those spices down into a crust. That's how a dry rib gets real bark without a drop of sauce.
How close he got
Close. The crust looked right and tasted right, peppery and a little sour from the vinegar, with that dusty top layer that ends up on your fingers and your shirt. The meat was more tender than the Memphis ribs, which isn't a complaint, but it isn't the same, either. Next time we'll set them a little closer to the coals and pull them twenty minutes sooner to get some of that chew back.
The one thing that went wrong was the finishing dust. On Saturday, Ryan shook on the full rub, salt and all, and the end pieces caught the most of it. They were salty enough that Nora slipped hers to Waylon under the table, and he did not complain. That's why step 1 sets the dust aside before the salt goes in. Raw paprika and pepper at the end taste wonderful. Raw salt at the end just tastes like salt.
Jack gave them an eight and said Memphis still wins, which I think was mostly loyalty. Nora put sweet sauce on hers and declared the argument over and herself the winner. Ryan ate a half rack standing at the kettle, which I'm counting as his vote.
Two racks from Kroger came to $21.15 at $3.99 a pound, and with charcoal and spices, dinner for four cost about $6.25 a person.
