Here's a recipe for a damn good beef rib that I've been experimenting with for some time, using my little #1.
Begin the prep the night before you plan on serving these babies.
Ingredients
3 large beef ribs, as meaty as you can get, with some of the fat still on them. Each rib can serve 1 hungry guy.
1 cup beef broth
Beer/water
Rub:
2 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoon coarsely grounded black pepper
2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
Directions
Place the rub ingredients in a small bowl and mix with your fingers until well incorporated.
Apply the rub to the ribs on all sides, pressing into the meat.
Refrigerate overnight.
When ready to smoke, place a tray with water or beer on the bottom shelf of the smoker. Better yet, fill up your Sasha Flavor Savor with water or beer and hang it on one of the racks.
Wood: Use around 2-2½ oz of hickory or oak (1 block of Smokin-It wood is perfect).
Note: After trying various types of woods, I concluded that the wood chunks sold by Smokin-It work the best for our machine. I’m not sure why they work better than chips (such as Western chips, which I've used countless times). Perhaps it takes longer for the solid blocks to burn, and the result is a deeper flavor? I'm not sure, but I think they do work better.
[The Jack Daniel’s chips are awesome, but I use them to smoke whole chicken, not for beef ribs and other applications].
Temperature and time: 225F, for 8 hours.
[I tested beef ribs on both 250F and 225F, checking them at various hours - 6, 8, 9, 10 - and concluded that for meaty ribs, 8 hours on 225F yields the best result. The meat is still somewhat red, yet very soft, and the exterior is nicely smoked with great flavor.]
When the smoking is completed, place the ribs (which by now should have shrunk significantly), in a sealable container, a pan with a tight lid, or thick aluminum foil.
Pour in the beef broth, cover, and let the ribs steam for 1 hour, softening them further.
Then eat to your heart’s content!
Notes
This recipe is based on a recipe in Steven Raichlen’s superb book, “Project Smoke”, with some modification to fit my palate (he doesn’t advocate preparing it the night before and his rub is too hot for my palate). Besides, he suggests 225-250 for 8-10 h, while I concluded that with the Smokin-It machine, the best is 8 h @ 225F.
The attached photo is from today’s smoking. Usually I buy from my butcher a full bone rib (Paisanos Butcher Shop, one of the best in NY!!). This time they accidentally sent me a rib that was cut in half (short ribs), and I think it came out even better!
You might want to experiment with a full-length rib vs. a rib cut in half. One advantage of buying ribs that have been cut is that you can then choose the meatiest cuts. If you buy an uncut full rib, you might end up with one that is very meaty on one end but on the opposite end is not, resulting in an uneven rib.
As an aside, I’ve gone through several smoking books - including: Aaron Franklin's "Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto”, Jeff Phillips’ “Smoking Meat: The Essential Guide to Real Barbecue”, Myron Mixon’s “Smokin' with Myron Mixon” and some others - and hands down, IMO, “Project Smoke” is the best of them all. I’m going through it slowly, but so far, except for one recipe, they’ve all been fantastic. I particularly appreciate that the recipes tend to be Paleo friendly (unlike Mixon’s recipes that involve way too much sugar etc.), and they let the meat shine rather than drowning them with sauces (as Mixon does....). If you have to coat your meat with a sauce, you either have very poor meat, or you're doing something wrong.
I just found Raichlen’s article about beef ribs. This can help you chose the right one. Honestly, I don’t know which I use. I think I use the ones he calls “beef plate ribs". http://barbecuebible.com/2014/05/23/big-bad-beef-ribs/
Enjoy!
Zvi
Begin the prep the night before you plan on serving these babies.
Ingredients
3 large beef ribs, as meaty as you can get, with some of the fat still on them. Each rib can serve 1 hungry guy.
1 cup beef broth
Beer/water
Rub:
2 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoon coarsely grounded black pepper
2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
Directions
Place the rub ingredients in a small bowl and mix with your fingers until well incorporated.
Apply the rub to the ribs on all sides, pressing into the meat.
Refrigerate overnight.
When ready to smoke, place a tray with water or beer on the bottom shelf of the smoker. Better yet, fill up your Sasha Flavor Savor with water or beer and hang it on one of the racks.
Wood: Use around 2-2½ oz of hickory or oak (1 block of Smokin-It wood is perfect).
Note: After trying various types of woods, I concluded that the wood chunks sold by Smokin-It work the best for our machine. I’m not sure why they work better than chips (such as Western chips, which I've used countless times). Perhaps it takes longer for the solid blocks to burn, and the result is a deeper flavor? I'm not sure, but I think they do work better.
[The Jack Daniel’s chips are awesome, but I use them to smoke whole chicken, not for beef ribs and other applications].
Temperature and time: 225F, for 8 hours.
[I tested beef ribs on both 250F and 225F, checking them at various hours - 6, 8, 9, 10 - and concluded that for meaty ribs, 8 hours on 225F yields the best result. The meat is still somewhat red, yet very soft, and the exterior is nicely smoked with great flavor.]
When the smoking is completed, place the ribs (which by now should have shrunk significantly), in a sealable container, a pan with a tight lid, or thick aluminum foil.
Pour in the beef broth, cover, and let the ribs steam for 1 hour, softening them further.
Then eat to your heart’s content!
Notes
This recipe is based on a recipe in Steven Raichlen’s superb book, “Project Smoke”, with some modification to fit my palate (he doesn’t advocate preparing it the night before and his rub is too hot for my palate). Besides, he suggests 225-250 for 8-10 h, while I concluded that with the Smokin-It machine, the best is 8 h @ 225F.
The attached photo is from today’s smoking. Usually I buy from my butcher a full bone rib (Paisanos Butcher Shop, one of the best in NY!!). This time they accidentally sent me a rib that was cut in half (short ribs), and I think it came out even better!
You might want to experiment with a full-length rib vs. a rib cut in half. One advantage of buying ribs that have been cut is that you can then choose the meatiest cuts. If you buy an uncut full rib, you might end up with one that is very meaty on one end but on the opposite end is not, resulting in an uneven rib.
As an aside, I’ve gone through several smoking books - including: Aaron Franklin's "Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto”, Jeff Phillips’ “Smoking Meat: The Essential Guide to Real Barbecue”, Myron Mixon’s “Smokin' with Myron Mixon” and some others - and hands down, IMO, “Project Smoke” is the best of them all. I’m going through it slowly, but so far, except for one recipe, they’ve all been fantastic. I particularly appreciate that the recipes tend to be Paleo friendly (unlike Mixon’s recipes that involve way too much sugar etc.), and they let the meat shine rather than drowning them with sauces (as Mixon does....). If you have to coat your meat with a sauce, you either have very poor meat, or you're doing something wrong.
I just found Raichlen’s article about beef ribs. This can help you chose the right one. Honestly, I don’t know which I use. I think I use the ones he calls “beef plate ribs". http://barbecuebible.com/2014/05/23/big-bad-beef-ribs/
Enjoy!
Zvi
None of my $ either!
