Cody Taylor

Ever since my first Ribfest, I’ve been experimenting rigorously with how to make amazing ribs in my backyard with my propane grill. I’ve created a few horrible racks but I’ve finally arrived at a place where they are always ridiculously tasty. Now, for me, it’s more about trying different rubs, sauces, and wood chips and combinations of the three. Here are some guidelines on how to make amazing tender smoked back ribs on your propane grill.

Buying ribs

It’s really important to buy fresh back ribs with a decent amount of fat on them. Here’s a video I found about checking for freshness when buying ribs from the grocery store:

Clean and Remove Membrane

You should always rinse and pat dry your ribs before you get started. Also back ribs have this annoying plastic-like substance on the bottom of them covering the bones. This needs to be removed before you apply your rub or start cooking. It’s by far the most annoying part of cooking ribs. Here an instructional video done by some guy with an awesome voice:

Dry Rib Rub

There are infinite opinions on how to make a great dry rub for back ribs, so I won’t detail any exact recipe. I have found that mixing cumin, paprika, garlic and onion powder, and lots of brown sugar never fails. Don’t use a lot of salt though! An example of amounts to use would be:
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons black pepper
1 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons cumin powder
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

Rub it in good like the video shows:

Grilling

With ribs, you always want to cook low and slow. Some of my ribs have taken up to eight hours to get perfectly tender and smoked. Always cook using indirect heat. What this means is you put the ribs on one side of the grill with the burners on that side turned off and have the burners on the other side turned on. This takes a long time to get the ribs really tender.

This doesn’t always cut it for making the ribs nice and tender within a reasonable amount of time. A lot of people tend to boil their ribs before they bbq them but that boils away a lot of the flavour as well. One method that has always worked for me is wrapping the ribs tightly in tinfoil. This tends to boil the ribs in their own fat giving them an amazing flavour and tenderizing them at the same time. This video gives a decent overview of the process:

Smoking

If you’re like most people and you don’t have a smoker grill then it’s fairly difficult to really get a good smokey flavour in the meat. Difficult, but not impossible. You just need a smoker box. I actually use two of these to really get the smoke going. You can generally buy them at any store that sells bbqs. If you use the tinfoil method then this can only really be done during the final grilling stage but I like to smoke the meat a bit using low indirect heat after I take them out of the tinfoil just for some extra smokey flavour.

Sauce and Final Grilling

This part is the most fun as long as the ribs aren’t actually falling off the bone. With the top of the bbq open, you want to turn the heat up and sear some sauce into the ribs. Usually flipping them about 4 or 5 times and reapplying the sauce over and over again so it really gets on there. It’s a long process but if you like ribs it’s well worth it.