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Beef Ribs are probably my favourite thing to eat on the planet - so I get a lot of practice in cooking them and get pretty awesome results every time. Here’s my Beef Ribs 101 and I hope that you enjoy it and get to eat some awesome Beef Ribs as a result!
First of all it helps to source awesome Beef Ribs - I order mine over the phone from Bob’s Family Butchers where I get consistently great racks every time. But what you are looking for is nice marbling, even size across the rack with uniform shape and depth across the rack. These things together will ensure each rib is delicious tender once finished cooking.
It is also important to make sure that you don’t have any Brisket Flat still attached to the rack - sometimes in the UK we are sold beef short ribs with an extra muscle still on top which cooks at different rates to the rest of the cut giving you odd results in the end with a slightly tougher part of meat on top of your ribs. If you have this I personally cut it off along with the silver skin and fat which sits between the two muscles. Take care and make sure you keep the surface neat and streamlined. Your rack should look like pic 1 on top when you are done:
I then flip the rack over and remove the membrane on the underside of the rack in between each bone angling my knife and using the bone as a guide to get in and remove it fully. It should look like pic 2 when you are done:
Now we are ready to rub these babies! Well not quite yet as I like to introduce a little something to help the rub adhere properly in the form of hot sauce. I add a splash of hot sauce and rub it all over the meat to give it a nice sticky wet surface. Don’t worry this won't make it too spicy!
So now let's sprinkle on our rub, you can use whatever you like and I more than often keep it simple with some coarse pepper and sea salt but for todays cook I have used Angus & Oinks Moo Mami to give it a try. You want a nice even coating across the ribs like pic 3/4:
Now for the easy part, set your smoker to 135c/ 275f, I like to cook pretty much all my beef at 275f as a personal preference but you can go anywhere between 107c- 135c / 225-275f for this cook. Indirect with a nice steady smoke, I personally prefer Cherry but you can go with whatever you like.
They’re done when they’re done but that’s about as useful as a waterproof teabag so what you are looking for is meat that probing like butter, super soft, aim to probe between the ribs and you should drop right through the rack with no resistance at all. Then you know you are done. If I had to put a temp on it, I would say between 93c-98c / 200-210f which on a rack like this will take between 6 & 8 hours.
I personally never wrap my beef ribs, I personally prefer the bark I get without the wrap and in my opinion the finish is better on the inside too but barbecue greats like Aaron Franklin wrap theirs and so the decision is yours on this one. If you decide you'd like to wrap do this after about 2 hours into the cook.
So when they’re done they’re done. Give them a rest and then slice those babies up and enjoy!
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BEEF RIBS 101