Crispy Dry Rub Spare Ribs

One of my favorite things is to search the net for recipes I can adapt to a pellet smoker. I love to try new things. When I saw this at serious eats cooking site I just had to try these.
The recipe is from Fleisher's Grass-Fed and Organic Meats and authors of The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meats.

I am pretty well set to how I usually like my ribs, wet down with red wine vinegar, a coating of Penzey’s Galena Street rib rub and marinated over night. I do them dry and serve any sauce on the side. This dry rub called for ¼ cup of coarse salt, ¼ cup of dark brown sugar and other spices. It makes about 1 ½ cups for one rack of spare ribs and marinated 30 minutes up to 12 hours.

The description said it was suppose to encase the ribs in a crispy layer with juicy tender meat on the inside. The crispy layer could be eaten like potato chips. This all sounded good to me, ribs with bark!

This called for a full rack of spare ribs, it didn’t say anything about any trimming but I trimmed off the flap meat. I had just over a 3 lb. rack from my butcher. I removed the membrane and coated well with the dry rub, I had about ½ cup of rub left to add before going on the smoker. I used a scant ¼ cup of salt since it sounded like too much to me. I covered with saran wrap and in the fridge for 3 hours.

I lit my amazin tube smoker and got the smoker up to 250 deg. I used all Traeger oak pellets. I got the ribs on at 3:00 pm. The recipe said 250 deg. for 3 hours so we would eat at 6:00 pm. My Traeger held pretty close at 250 deg. I did them meat side up and after 2 hours and 40 minutes they didn’t look like they was getting crisp. The bone side looked great so I flipped them and went to 300 deg. I pulled them about 10 after 6 so total cook time was 3 hours 10 minutes.

My sides were two of my favorites, cheesy scalloped potatoes and scalloped corn. I had a slice of Home Pride wheat bread and butter with my meal.

My first bite of ribs was way too salty, and I am a salt lover. My wife said they weren’t too bad but then said too salty. Her first bite must have not had much salt! They were not bad enough to not eat; I loved the crispy layer and the meat inside was tender and moist.

I will definitely do these again but cut the salt to 1 or 2 Tbs. If you try these I would also say do 2 hours meat side up then 1 hour down.

Ribs, I had applied rub to the bone side

Ready for the smoker

After one hour

After two hours

Meat side before flipping

Bone side after the flip

Ready to serve

My Plate

Smokin Don