Costco has large packs of Baby Back and St. Louis pork ribs at a pretty good price. Looking for a way to cook them that doesn’t take all day, I came across this blog post. Our rendition just goes for a simple salt, pepper and garlic powder seasoning, with no additional preparation.
Ingredients (serves 2-3)
- 1 rack of Baby Back or St. Louis Ribs
- Olive Oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- Garlic Powder
Instructions
- Pre-heat the BBQ on Medium (both burners).
- This typically means a temperature of around 400^{\circ}\mathrm{F}.
- Cut the rack of ribs in half.
- This is partly due to the width of our BBQ, and partly to make the ribs easier to flip.
- Rub the ribs with some olive oil on both sides.
- Apply salt, pepper, and garlic powder to both sides of the ribs, and pat them into the meat.
- Typically one pass with the grinder for salt and pepper strikes the right balance for both.
- Garlic powder I tend to be fairly liberal with.
- Place the ribs bone-side down on the BBQ grill, close the lid and cook for 30 minutes.
- Flip the ribs so that the meat side is down, close the lid and cook for another 15 minutes.
- Remove the ribs from the BBQ and serve (making sure they’ve obtained a minimum safe temperature, of course. See notes.)
Notes
- The olive oil is to help the seasoning stick and help crisp up the outside. How necessary it is is perhaps debatable.
- Similarly, seasoning the bone side is maybe also unnecessary.
- If you want to experiment with the seasoning mix, be forewarned that seasonings containing sugar will end up fairly charred, due to the heat involved (especially if applied to the bone side).
- The reference blog post mentions trimming the St. Louis ribs. We didn’t bother, and were pretty happy with the results.
- The FDA recommends a minimum safe internal temperature for pork of 145^{\circ}\mathrm{F}, with a 3 minute resting time. If memory serves, this recipe typically far exceeds that (190^{\circ}\mathrm{F} or even beyond 200^{\circ}\mathrm{F}). I’ve read that in this case this is actually a good thing: the fat and connective tissue in ribs is better rendered at these higher temperatures, making for more more tender and juicy ribs. At any rate, keep your instant-read thermometer handy until you’re comfortable enough with this recipe and your BBQ that doneness is never in doubt!