321 St Louis Ribs Recipe
One of my absolute favourites - the mighty St. Louis cut pork ribs. With plenty of meat on the bone with every bite, it’s the perfect balance of fat and flavour that will keep you coming back for more!
Yield: 4
Low and Slow St. Louis Ribs
Prep time: 30 MinCook time: 6 HourTotal time: 6 H & 30 M
This fool proof 321 method gives you melt in the mouth pork ribs with just enough bite to fool any BBQ judge. With 3 hours smoking, 2 hours wrapped and 1 hour for saucing means that you won't be eating any time soon, but the result is more than worth the wait!
Ingredients
Nice to have utensils
Instructions
Preparing the ribs
- Remove your ribs from any packaging, and dry with some paper towel.
- Place your ribs meat side down on the chopping board and take the end of a teaspoon or the tip of a butter knife and remove the membrane from the back of the ribs, pulling upwards with some paper towel for grip. TIP: find a point in the middle and pull up taking both sides with you at the same time.
- Cover with your binder - in my case, sweet mustard and dust with your favourite bbq rub.
- Repeat on all sides.
Cooking your ribs
- Set your BBQ or smoker to 110C. TIP: If using a kettle style charcoal BBQ, try the 'snake' or 'minion' method for low and slow cooking!
- If using a Traeger, set to 105C and place on super smoke.
- Place your racks of ribs on the rack and leave undisturbed for at least 30 minutes.
- Mix together your apple juice and apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle and spritz your ribs every 30-45 minutes
- Once you've hit around the *3 hour mark, the ribs should have a lovely mahogany colour from the smoke and rub, with a slight bend to them when you pick them up.
- Now it's time for the wrap. Take a sheet of aluminium foil that's at least double the length of your ribs, and place your butter, brown sugar and a sprinkling of your bbq rub to far right of your sheet of foil, leaving at least 4-5cm to the side.
- Place your ribs meat side down on the butter / sugar / rub blend and repeat on the other side.
- Take your foil and cover over the ribs, folding down the sides as you make the wrap. It's important to fold and not scrunch your foil, as you'll want it to be as sealed as possible. Any tears will result in some serious leakage, so do take care in this stage!
- Once wrapped, you should have a rib parcel packet with an open end at one side. Take your remaining juice from the spritz bottle and pour in half of the mixture into the packet. If you've wrapped it securely with no holes, you should not have any leaks. If you do, try to patch up as best you can as to not make a mess on the bottom of the BBQ!
- Place your wrapped ribs meat side down and let them sit for *2 hours at 110C or 105C on a Traeger with super smoke function.
- Once the ribs have a lot of bend and give after the 2 hour mark, open your wrap and pour out any braising juices into a bowl.
- Sauce your ribs and lay your ribs meat side up on the grates and let set. This can take anywhere between 30-60 minutes depending on your cut of ribs / style of BBQ sauce.
- Once the sauce is set, you are good to serve! Cut into 2-3 bone sections and serve with classic BBQ sides like jacket potatoes and coleslaw, or whatever you'd like to go with the flavour profile that you've gone for on the day - the opportunities are endless!
Notes
*The 321 timings are a guide only. It will depend on the specific cut as to how long it will take. For example, iberico ribs (St. Louis or baby back) tend to be much fattier, but have less meat. This means that I would reduce cooking times to 2.5/1.5/0.5 - the same for standard baby back ribs.
