Cherry Smoked Pork Ribs

So this weekend I brewed a Hefeweizen that I’m going to be adding coconut flakes into after a week or so. I forgot to take pics, but I’ll get a few after it’s ready and make a post.

At the same time as I was mashing in, I was lighting up the grill and prepping some pork ribs. They turned out great – It was a Sunday where I got to brew and bbq was a really refreshing way to spend the day.

The Prep

Ingredient/Step	How Much	Detail
Pork ribs, St. Louis Cut	However much you want! Today I had 3 racks, 11lbs all in.	It doesn’t matter just get whatever cut they have.
Peel that membrane on the underside – One you get it going a paper towel helps peel it	As much as you can get!
Your favorite rub See below for my rub choices for tri tip.	Liberally coat the whole thing.	I used a combo of Meat Church Honey Hog and Holy Gospel rubs. The Sugar in the Honey Hog helped form a crystallized bark.
2 nice chunks of Cherry	Decent size bad boys, probably about 6oz worth?	Stacked underneath the charcoal.
Plan the cook	I usually guess about 5 hours for ribs, but it can vary.	We can’t really get a good read with a temp probe on ribs, so we know there’s down when the fully bend when you hold them up with tongs, and the skin starts to split. You’ve cooked them too long if the meat is falling off the bone when you hold it up.

The Cook

Method	Detail
1. Grill Set-Up	All indirect today.
2. Indirect Smoke	Today’s cook will be going at 250 F. Throw a chunk on either side of the pile and bury it in the charcoal. Heat it up, let it burn for a bit to get that clean smoke going. You don’t want cloudy white coming out of grill.
3. Put them on!	Once you’ve stabilized around 250 F and you’ve got a clean burn, add your ribs and let them go for a a little bit. You’ll see in the pic below, I had to cut my racks in half and use a rib rack to fit everything.
4. Start Spritzing	Grab a spray bottle and start spritzing. I mixed some apple juice, soy sauce, and apple cider vinegar and sprayed them down around the 2 hour mark, then 3 to 4 more times every 20 minutes thereafter.
5. Glaze	Get your favorite glaze or bbq sauce. I had 6 small racks, so I left two unglazed, did 2 with a mild bbq sauce, and then did the last two with the same bbq sauce mixed with some gojuchang sauce because I love spicy. With roughly 1 hour left, glaze them up liberally.
6. Check for done-ness	As I mentioned above in the planning step, you know they’re done when they have a great bend, but don’t break. You should be getting slight cracking in the skin. You know you nailed when you can bite off a chunk with ease, but only the place your teeth grab the meat comes off the bone. You don’t want fall off the bone, that’s overcooked!
7. Pull them off, cut them up and serve	*Mine took roughly around 5 hours and 30 minutes.*