Celebrate warm summer weather with perfectly smoked pork ribs. Morgan’s Barbecue, near the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, serves up traditional, Texas-style barbecue ribs, smoked overnight in their in-house smoker, but you can make a similar product at home by following a few simple steps from Pitmaster Mark Roper.
1. Choose the right ribs for the occasion. A St. Louis cut (or Spare rib) provides the most meat and juiciness per serving, so be sure to ask your butcher for a few racks of these.
2. Apply your preferred rub to the ribs. Morgan’s uses a salt and pepper-based rub, which delivers a nice crust to the ribs, while lightly infusing the meat to give the ribs the perfect flavor. Be generous with whichever rub you choose, on both sides of the racks. Be sure not to apply your rub to the ribs too far in advance, for the salt will act as a curing agent to the meat, and leave you with dry, overcooked ribs.
3. Preparing your grill. If you are working with a standard charcoal grill (the classic Weber, for instance), you will want to build a bed of hot coals on one side of the grill, fill an aluminum pan with water, and place directly above the coals.
4. Next, is adding the wood. You can find wood chips at most grocery stores, but you’ll want to look for a type of wood that provides some moisture (or, soak the wood chips in a water bath for an hour before using). Adding wood to the coals is a crucial step in the process of creating the smoke flavor to your ribs.
5. After the ribs are prepped, place them on the grill on the opposite side of the hot coals and water pan (providing indirect heat). The ideal temperature of your grill should be approximately 225 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. To obtain the perfect tenderness, smoke the ribs for about three hours (depending on their size), wrap in aluminum foil, and place back on the grill for another hour.
7. Once the ribs have been smoked, unwrap the ribs and finish on the grill up to another hour. Depending on personal taste, you can apply a light mop of barbecue sauce to the ribs, and finish on the grill for 2-3 minutes.
Mark Roper is the pitmaster at Brooklyn’s Morgna’s Barbeque. Learn more about the tasty offerings at Morgan’s at morgansbrooklynbarbecue.com!
