Help, I'm barbecuing beef ribs without a clue!

June 25, 2004 3:22 PM

Help, I'm barbecuing beef ribs without a clue!

I've turned just about everything that walks, flies, or scurries under the sun into moist, smokey bbq except cow. My love affair with the pig has lead me to neglect our bovine friends, having done one brisket and no beef ribs. Now I have some beautiful meaty ribs on the smoker over mesquite. I marinated them overnight in pibil, a Mayan concotion of garlic, lime, salt, orange, allspice, cinnamon, and achiote. I can't find any info on smoking this particular type of meat in my regular places, anyone have any guidelines on time/temp? Any other tips?

posted by TungstenChef to food & drink (4 comments total)

Your marinade sounds lovely. Care to share the recipe?

The current issue of Cook's Illustrated has a big article on beef ribs. I have not yet tried this but am very much looking forward to doing so; their recipes have never done me wrong. Following is the gist, but I highly suggest you pick up the magazine; I've made their pork ribs a number of times and they're phenomenal.

Gas or charcoal? If gas, use wood chips. If charcoal, you'll need to add more briquettes as you go along to maintain the temperature over time.

Get grill to 300°, put ribs on cool side of grill with the vents over the meat, not the fire (this draws the tasty smoke over them, and keeps them from cooking too fast). Rotate & flip ribs every 30 minutes until meat pulls away from teh ribs when twisted and/or shrinks 1/2 to 1 inch up from end of bone.

The article, naturally, has more detailed instructions but that should get you started. What time can I come over??
posted by mimi at 4:07 PM on June 25, 2004

Foodnotes has a webpage describing the differences between bake'n'grill and braise'n'boil techniques.

And of course, dummies.com has a free online guide demonstrating the sweet magic of foil-wrap basting.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:10 PM on June 25, 2004

D'oh: Keep grill between 250° and 300...
posted by mimi at 4:33 PM on June 25, 2004

Thanks for the tips all. The ribs turned out...decidedly mediocre unfortunately. I think this was mainly because they had spent all day bathing in beef fat rather than pork fat, and as every good carniverous cook knows pork fat > beef fat. Also, the pibil turned out to not adapt well on the grill. It's much better made into a sort of a braising liquid as is done traditionally. I got the recipe I based it on from foodtv.com (just search on pibil, there are only a few variations).
posted by TungstenChef at 9:38 PM on June 26, 2004