Weekend BBQ Tip

Each weekend, I'm going to post a BBQ tip here to (hopefully) make your summer more tasty.

This tip comes from a conversation that I had with a listener recently who was telling me all about his technique for ribs.

He told me that he wraps his ribs in foil for the entire 5-6 hours that he smokes/cooks them.

Buzzers should be going off about now.

Here's your BBQ tip #1: Ribs (or anything else really) can't get the smokey flavor from the smoke unless the smoke is hitting the meat! Okay, that sounds obvious. But here's the second part to this tip: after about two hours, the meat is basically saturated with the smoke. There is a limit to how much smoke you can get into ribs.

So, here's one of the techniques I use, feel free to use it the next time you do ribs.

Marinade or brine first. Choose your favorite marinade, just know that the point to marinading ribs is partly about putting a subtle flavor into the meat, but its mostly about breaking down the connective tissue. If I am using an acidic marinade, like lemonade or something vinegar based, I'll marinade for a shorter time (maybe 3-4 hours) vs. something that is less acidic (which I may let sit overnight).

Make sure whatever kind of wood or chips you are going to use for smoking are well saturated. If you are using store bought chips, submerging them in water for 3-4 hours will be plenty.

Then you have your smoke. After two hours or so, you can wrap the ribs in foil to get a steaming effect so they'll be super-tender, but remember, you don't want them to totally fall off the bone. You want them to need a little tug to come off. That's the perfect rib.

I'll have another BBQ tip next weekend and I'll have more on the sports scene during the week.