How This Attempt Started
Before anybody had a pellet smoker in the backyard, grandma made ribs one of two ways. She put them in the oven low and slow for two and a half to three hours until they were tender, then charred them with barbecue sauce on the grill. Or she boiled them until they fell apart, then did the same char and sauce finish. Either way, the ribs came off the bone clean.
That is the texture I am chasing, the same tenderness, just built with a smoke ring and a smoker instead of an oven or a pot. This particular attempt started because my daughter Kennedy told me if we were staying home for the weekend, I should put something on the smoker. So Tracy grabbed ribs, and I decided to take another run at fall-off-the-bone.
The plan this time was one hour of smoke, two hours in a foil boat, then about thirty minutes to get the barbecue sauce tacked up. Bottom line: they were not fall-off-the-bone. They were juicy, they had a nice smoke ring, and the bones came out clean, but I would put this attempt at about sixty percent of the way to what I am actually after. Still good ribs. Just not the ribs I was trying to make.
The swap and the competition-ribs argument
One change worth mentioning: I ran out of apple juice, so I used orange-mango sparkling water in the foil boat instead. It did not change the bark at all, but it added a light citrus sweetness, more like there was a little more going on than just meat and barbecue sauce. I cannot promise I will reach for it on purpose next time, but if it is what is in the fridge, I would trust it again.
As for why I care so much about fall-off-the-bone in the first place: I hate competition-style ribs. Here is why. Competitors package six ribs and hand them to six judges. Each judge grabs a rib on either side and takes one bite, right in the middle. If the meat pulls cleanly off the bone, that scores against you. The bite has to cut clean and leave meat behind on the bone.
That rule shapes everything about how those ribs get built, heavy layers of sauce and spice tuned for one perfect bite in front of a judge. But nobody I know eats a rib in one bite. At home, you want it to fall apart. No restaurant opens with ribs that do not fall off the bone, and there is a reason for that. Competition ribs suck, and fall-off-the-bone is what you had as a kid and what you actually want now.
What's next
There is no finished recipe here yet, I have not earned that. But I know what I am changing next time. I am going to leave the ribs exposed for the first hour to lock in the smoke ring and bake the spices on, then move to a foil wrap with liquid and raise the temperature a bit for more of that tenderizing effect. And instead of pulling them at a fixed two hours, I am going to keep checking until they actually hit the tenderness I want.
If you are a fall-off-the-bone rib person and you have already figured this out, tell me in the comments. Hook a brother up.
What I Used
- Smoker: Pit Boss Sportsman 820
- Rub: Texas Sugar
Neither of these is an affiliate link right now, just what I actually used.
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I’m Ryan from Might As Well Guy. Try stuff. Have fun. Life’s way more interesting when you actually go do stuff.
