Old School Ribs - Excellent Read for Rib Novices Out There

Over the weekend we celebrated the Grillin Fool's birthday with some serious grillin, chillin and poker shillin. Ribs, Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin, Grilled Beans and an entire Chub of Bologna. Dad did the ribs as well as the prep work on the Deer Tenderloin. For the ribs he didn't bother with the latest Rib crazes right now like the 3-2-1 method or trying to produce a flavor "bark" with loads of rub. This was simple, indirect grilling of ribs along with some fruit wood smoke for extra flavor. Would you believe that the smoke ring above was produced in less than 2 hours on a grill that is not a designated smoker?

This is the perfect post for those of you that have not done ribs or are new to cooking ribs. I took some pics of what to look for to figure out when your ribs are done (hint the top pic above is a good indicator). Also, for those of you without dedicated smokers this proves that you can cook some mean ribs without having to have a special grill for it. Click the link below to see what I am talking about.


It was quite a gathering at Fool’s Pappy’s house for the Fool’s birthday and what else would occur but firing up a few grills? Fool indicated he would like ribs for his big day and I obliged (since I’m the supreme griller of ribs among the Fools).**Editor's note - The other two Grillin Fools beg to differ**

Very meaty baby back ribs were obtained from a couple of local grocers and the stage was set. Five full slabs were cut into ten ½ slabs for easier handling and fitting into the rib racks on the grill. The Ribs prior to being sliced in half:

Prep was very simple but the first step is very crucial to having a good result. The ribs must be ‘skinned’. This is mandatory if you want to have tender tasty ribs. ‘Skinning’ the ribs refers to the removal of the membrane (skin) on the back or bone side of the ribs. Getting this started is sometimes difficult. I usually insert a finger between two bones at one end of the rack and work the skin loose. Occasionally a knife or opposite end of a spoon is required to get it started. I then grab a paper towel to grab the skin (it’s naturally slippery and the towel enhances the grip) and peel the skin the length of the rack as shown. Removal of the skin eliminates toughness when you bite into it and the skin really has no flavor. Removal also allows what ever dry rub used to penetrate the meat (also the wood smoke) thus enhancing flavor. For maximum flavor and tenderness, ‘skin your ribs’:

The dry rub spices were applied next with the first application being a light dusting on both sides of granulated garlic. This was followed by a light application of KC Sweet and Smoky Rub (Master Griller Steve Raichlen’s recipe with a bit less salt). The spices were then ‘patted’ into the meat and not actually rubbed. Some experts I’ve read suggest ‘patting’ the meat aids in preserving tenderness as opposed to actual ‘rubbing’. I don’t know if there is a lot of credence to this but I’ve been doing it for quite a while with good results. Utilizing a ‘light’ amount of spices enhances the flavor of the meat. Many grillers ‘cake’ the ribs to the point of obtaining an overpowering crust on the ribs. I try to avoid that. The rub was applied a few hours before the ribs hit the grill:

Did anyone notice the big candle on the platter of ribs before cooking? It was just the special touch befitting the Grillin’ Fool on his birthday.**Editor's Note - the candle would've been more recognizeable had he actually gotten the flame in the only pic he took of it**

Before using a rib rack, always spray with Pam or a similar product prior to placing the ribs in the rack. This will make cleanup later much easier:

The fire is ready on both grills and it’s time to grill. Two grills were used as half the ribs were smoked with cherry chunks and the other half with apple wood just to have bit of variety. Cooking time was approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes using the indirect method (I had the coals on the left side of the grill and the ribs on the right).

Closeup of ribs on left grill:

Closeup of the ribs on the right grill:

Notice how the ribs are staggered in the rack? The first slab is pushed farther to the back, the next farther to the front, the next farther to the back, etc? This is to allow the heat and smoke to penetrate the meat better. While rib racks allow for more ribs per square inch of grilling space, they also inhibit the permeation of smoke and serve to insulate the ribs against each other. Staggering them like this helps to alleviate both problems.

45 minutes later the ribs on the left:

The half rack in front is cooking at a much faster pace than the rest of the ribs. Time to rearrange:

Not only did I put the half slab that was cooking too fast to the back, I turned the other ribs to be perpendicular to the heat and put some space between the slabs to allow the smoke to circulate in and around them better - basically the theory of staggering them taken a bit farther with the extra room in this rib rack. Here we have a shot that shows how much room there is between them:

And while that half slab that was on front was cooking faster than the other four, the ribs on the other grill were cooking faster as well, but not as quickly of the darkest slab in the pic above:

A pic from above even shows a slight bit of meat separating from the bone:

**Editor's note - Some are going to ask at what temp the grill on the right was cooking at. Well that's a little tough to tell. Here is a shot of the grill on the right with the lid closed:

And here is a close up of the thermometer:

good luck checking the temp on that thing.

Here is the grill on the left:

And the temp on the side with the coals:

And the temp on the side with the ribs:

The true temp of the Brinkmann is somewhat higher than these thermometers indicate considering the cold weather we were grillin in. The Brinkmann was probably over 250 and the old Charbroil on the right was hotter than that. Probably at the 275-300 range on the side with the coals.

Wish I had some solid numbers here. This was my fault. I forgot my remote thermometer**

30 minutes later (75 minutes in) ribs on the left along with the Chub of bologna and the beans (more on those later):

Those are coming along nicely but the ones on the right are doing even better:

This pic is a bit dark so I hope you can see the meat pulling back from the bone. This is what you are looking for:

20 minutes later (95 minutes into the process) the ones on the right are looking fantastic. Meat is really pulling away from the bone:

10 minute later (105 minutes in) I pulled them out of the rib rack to get this pic before taking them inside:

I took the half racks above along with the the half rack that was cooking too quickly from the left grill and placed them into disposable tin trays with a little beer in the pan and foil on top and into a 150 degree oven to keep warm:

The other slabs were placed over on the grill to the right in order to finish up as that grill stayed hotter than the Brinkman. Those 4 slabs took about a total of 2 hours.

When served the knife went through them like they were warm butter, not falling off the bone though. Properly cooked ribs should not fall off the bone. They should maintain a texture that is pleasing, tender, and slightly chewy. Usually if you are served ribs that fall off the bone they have been cooked improperly or parboiled (ugh!). This batch came out perfect as many of the guests that night exclaimed. You may have noticed the lack of barbeque sauce. There was none offered and certainly none needed. Occasionally I will add sauce to the mix and try to ‘glaze’ a coat or two on the ribs as some prefer that addition.

Money shot: Notice the meatiness of these ribs! They were very tasty and the smoke ring was readily apparent as you can see. There were no leftovers on this evening!


**Editor's note - Excellent Job Dad!!!

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Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin - It just wouldn't be my birthday without something wrapped in bacon!!

One of the main dishes for my birthday was bacon wrapped deer tenderloin. I've had deer in the past as I have many friends and family that are hunters, but it's always been a bit of an after thought rather than something I have taken a lot of time to prepare and cook. More like an appetizer or a chef's prerogative. This time we put some time and effort into the venison. For this dish, Dad and I did a tag team. He did the prep and I did the cooking. The outcome was pretty stellar. Click below to see the how we pulled it off...


Part I: The prep by Fool's Pappy

Whole Deer Tenderloin was generously provided by Adrian, a high school classmate of Fool’s Pappy:

Adrian is a hunter supreme with duck and deer being his specialties. We invited him to the party (he has poker fantasies!) and he volunteered this beautiful venison tenderloin.

Most wild game require a marinade of some sort and this recipe was obtained from Adrian’s acquaintance who was a previous Illinois State Game Cooking Champion. **Editor's note - I'm not exactly sure how one attains this title**

1-tbsp minced garlic

1-tsp ground black pepper

¼ cup olive oil

1 cup soy sauce (we used ‘lite’ soy sauce to reduce sodium content and it worked well)

juice from one lemon **Editor's note - when adding the juice of a lemon run the juice through your fingers so that the seeds do not make it into the marinade**

Marinade in a gallon Ziploc bag several hours or overnight (we did overnight) then remove from marinade and wrap in bacon (we just can’t stay away from that pork fat thing!).

Grill over medium hot coals till bacon is crisp.

Prep: notice the ‘silver skin’ or membrane in the picture below when the loin is turned over?

That must be removed (it doesn’t chew well and would greatly detract form the tenderness of the loin). This is no different than what is found on a pork tenderloin sometimes, or on whole beef tenderloins for that matter.

Use a sharp knife to begin the process with upward pressure on the ‘skin’. You don’t want to remove too much meat while performing this. The next few pictures will give you an idea of how to properly remove the silver skin:

Once the ‘silver skin’ is removed I sliced the loin in half to fit easily into a gallon Ziploc bag. The marinade ingredients were mixed and poured into the bag over the deer loin. Then it’s into the fridge overnight awaiting the bacon wrap tomorrow and ultimately the grill:

Adrian was kind enough to perform the bacon wrapping of the Tenderloin he was gracious enough to offer. **Editor's note - please note the lemon seeds we had to pull off the loins that wound up on the right side of the cutting board in the next three pics because Dad didn't bother with running the juice through his fingers**

Part II: The cooking by the Original Grillin Fool

By this time the sun had set and a chilly, sunny afternoon had turned into a very windy and bitterly cold evening. I loaded the grill up with more charcoal before adding the venison to the grill. Once the coals got going I added the loins directly over the heat as evidenced by the red embers visible directly below the meat:

Venison or deer should be treated just like beef in terms of cooking. Maybe cut back cooking time just a bit as there is less fat in venison but treat it like it is beef in terms of method. To that note, I cooked them over high heat and then pulled back to bake till finished. Normally I don't cook beef or venison over high heat with the lid closed as it could lead to burning the meat pretty quickly without constant monitoring particularly with bacon grease dripping down onto the fire.

But I didn't have a choice here. It was just too cold and windy to try to cook these things without the lid down. What I did to compensate is I listened closely. When I heard it flare up inside I opened the lid and moved the meat away from the flare ups. I must've done this about eight times. Once the bacon crisped on the bottom I flipped them over. Here is a close up of one after I flipped it:

The bacon unraveled a bit with all of the moving of the loins that I did. Don't let that bother you. Once the bacon was cooked I tested the firmness of the loin and it was still extremely rare. So I pulled it off to the side to bake with the lid down. But I didn't push it off to the side with no coals. I put them right on the edge of the coals. One in the front and one in the back. The other side of the grill was only running about 150 degrees. So I had to leave them right next to if not over some of the coals. About 10 minutes later they were done. The bacon was a little over done but the meat was perfect. Here they are resting (sorry about the poor lighting):

After 10 minutes of we gave Adrian the honor of slicing into those beauties. Here is the one that is a bit more done than the other - a nice medium:

And here are a couple shots of the one a little closer to medium rare. I had a hard time capturing the color of the meat. The flash washed it out but without the flash it was pretty dark. Hopefully you get the idea of how great this was:


What I would do differently? I probably should've moved the grill over to the side of the house and used the house as a wind break. Otherwise I wouldn't do a thing differently. These came out incredibly good. Everyone was surprised to find out it was venison rather than beef. There was no gaminess at all. These got nothing but raves...

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Who needs Baked Beans when you can have Grilled Beans!!

Baked beans have been a standard staple in terms of a side dish for BBQ seemingly forever. But why settle for baked beans? The grill is already up and running, why not use it to take baked beans to the next level. Why not impart some of that amazing smoky flavor that we so desire permeating the meat into the beans? There are a million ways to do grilled beans. This is just one of them. This is the simplest side dish. The prep time was all of 10 minutes and made a great side dish for a group of 20.


Let's start off with the ingredients. Here we have three large cans of Bush's Original Baked Beans. You can use anything here. There will be so many more flavors added that I don't bother buying something other than the original as the added flavors will overpower any specialized beans. Along with the beans there is garlic, olive oil, brown sugar, maple bacon and apple pie stuffing. That's right. Apple pie stuffing. Bear with me:

If I'm doing these for say 4 or 6 I would pick a pot with a metal handle and do all the prep in the pot and transfer it straight to the grill. But with 20 people coming over I needed something bigger to go on the grill. What I did in this pot on the stove was transferred to a double stack of a good size disposable tin tray. First things first. Throw in a little olive oil and garlic into a pot and get that garlic sweating over medium heat:

Add about a half cup of brown sugar and more olive oil as the sugar just soaked it up:

While the garlic is sauteing, as well as the sugar, chop up the apple pie stuffing into smaller chunks.

Then add the chunks to the pot to cook them down a bit:

While this is simmering I dumped the contents of the cans of beans into the disposable trays. I doubled them up to give the beans more support. After the garlic, brown sugar, apple concoction had simmered for a few minutes, I dumped them into the pan with the beans along with a healthy dose of fresh cracked black pepper and mixed it all through:

At this point I pulled out a few slices of maple bacon and sliced into one inch squares. You won't need the whole pound. This is a healthy version of the other things I normally prepare with bacon!!

I placed the bacon squares along the top of the beans but left a little space between each one so they wouldn't insulate each other and thus cook more quickly:

Depending on how much time you have you can place these directly over the heat or off to the side to slow cook. When I do ribs for say 6 hours I put them off to the side for 5 hours or so. We didn't have that kind of time so 2.5 hours on direct heat will have to do. Here are the beans next to the ribs with the Bologna Chub in the background:

Here are the beans simmering on the grill about 90 minutes later. The bacon is cooking nicely and the whole dish could be eaten at this point. But the longer they stay on the more flavors infuse into the beans:

And here are the beans ready to serve. The reason I don't use whole strips of bacon is because when they are ready to serve I just stir the bacon into the beans.


Now I will admit that I had never tried the apple pie stuffing in beans before. Normally I make this recipe exactly the same but without the stuffing. Sometimes I mince up some sweet onion, but this is usually my recipe. I had seen the apple pie stuffing on a couple of sites and decided to try it.

After the food was served and everyone was well on in tearing into their respective plates I asked the crowd for feedback. After a bit of goading I finally got a little more than, "everything is great." I had to assure them that they would not insult their hosts by giving constructive feedback. I was worried that it would be too sweet but I didn't get much of that. Even had a suggestion to add molasses next time. A couple people felt that it needed more salt. I figured the salt in the bacon would have taken care of that but maybe I need to add a pinch of salt next time. A couple people thought they were a bit thin. With a shorter cooking time the beans did not cook down as much as my usual beans do. I could've poured off a little of the sauce prior to cooking next time if I don't have as much time like I did here. So plan accordingly on that front.


What I would do differently next time:

1. Add a little salt. With a pan this big a pinch or two would do the trick
   
2. If I only have a couple hours of cooking time I would open the cans halfway with the can opener and pour a little of the sauce off the top using the top of the half opened can as a sieve so I don't lose any beans. If I have more than a couple hours then I skip this step and just let it cook down normally
   

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Grilled Bologna? Not slices, an entire chub of bologna

I got the idea for grilling an entire chub of bologna from Net Cooking Talk.com in the BBQ Forum. Simple enough recipe to try. Take an entire chub of bologna, slice off the bottom so it stands upright. Score the sides. Smoke/indirect for a few hours. To me, it hearkened back to college and fried bologna sammiches. This takes the fried bologna sammich to a whole other level and is so easy to do. Check the link below to see the rest...


Here we have the entire sealed chub of bologna:

Simply slice off the bottom to allow for it to stand upright:

Remove the plastic "skin" and score about every inch vertically:

Then repeat the process horizontally:

That's it. We didn't do a rub. Not salt (the sodium in this chub was off the chart), nothing. Just stood it up on the grill:

Here is where we ran into a few problems. After 45 minutes of indirect heat we were getting nowhere in terms of this thing cooking:

So I cut it in half to speed up the cooking process and scored the top of the newly sliced in half section at the top of this picture:

After another 90 minutes it was looking better but not the same as what I saw on the forum so I moved them closer to the coals on the left side:

At this time we had 20 ravenous people that had been smelling the ribs inside and ready to tear into some good Q. I didn't think these were done yet and left them on the grill. I had planned on just abandoning them for the evening, eating, and settling in for a poker game. But periodically I found myself outside throughout the night and rotated them a couple of times so they would cook evenly. The fire slowly died so they were not getting cooked quickly. About 7 hours after we put the bologna on, someone asked about it. So I went outside and pulled it in:

I got a couple of pictures and then in about 10 minutes half of that thing was gone:


People were making sandwiches, eating it in chunks, putting it on crackers. Either way, it was a big hit. We will do this again. And probably about the same way. I don't know how much of it would've been eaten with the main course with ribs, deer tenderloin, beans, and sides all available, but it made an excellent dessert!!

Things I would do differently next time:

• I would do a rub on this. Nothing fancy. But I think a rub could enhance the flavor even more. And I think I would apply the rub more than once. As the crevices form as the fat renders out I would add more rub. More surface area, more flavor.

Click here for the rest of the process