Oh Baby Backs

In the process of doing a little cooking for tomorrow, I decided I might as well cook some dinner tonight on the kettle.  And since I wanted to try out yet another new rub, in this case, Simply Marvelous Sweet and Spicy rub.  This is another product from the same company that made the seafood rub I last tested.  I found this rub has a medium to medium coarse grain texture, with evidence of herbs along with the spices. Steph, who created this rub, suggests it is an excellent pork rub, so ribs with rub as shown.

I prefer to put the rub directly onto the meat, no adherent or moisture, and let the rub sit on the meat for 30 minutes or so to allow the rub to 'cure' onto the meat (yes, form a pellicle).  The kettle was started and settled into 250F, the ribs were put on at 2:30pm and allowed to run for 2 hours.  I ramped the temperature up to 375F to get the second part of the cook started.  I put on a turkey loaf (tomorrow's post) which is why the temperature had to go up. At 4:45pm, some glaze made from BBQ sauce, bourbon and rice wine vinegar was brushed onto the ribs.  I left the middle part unglazed to test the rub. Ta Daaaa!

Dinner was just ribs and pickles.  Yes, just ribs and pickles, when you have ribs this good, that is all you need.  Since the cook was done quickly and over low smoke, there was not the characteristic pink ring of smoke, but, the cherry wood flavor was definitely in the meat, the rub was fantastic, once again showing a balanced flavor of a very east spice flavor with just a hint of sweetness. This rub has a flavor that complements the sweet character of the cherry smoke and pork. Here is the parting shot.