St. Louis Cut Ribs

I've been wanting to bust out the smoker for a month or so now. But we either get to busy or it's too wet and cold for me (I admit I'm a fair weather smoker).

But this weekend the stars aligned; the weather was absolutely gorgeous: mid 70's and I had Vin Scully and the Dodgers to keep me company while the cook was progressing

I found a nice rack of St. Louis Cut ribs which are a bit meatier than baby backs. I've only cooked them once before and wanted to try again.

3 racks of ribs from Costco

My plan was to go very simple. Usually I rub the ribs the night before and wrap them in plastic wrap overnight. This time it was going to be run 'n cook. My boss gave me a box of Penzey spices for Christmas so I used it on a couple of the racks. I had some left over Chris Lily Butt Rub for the 3rd rack.

Rubbed and ready for the grill

 One method of cooking ribs is to cook for a while then wrap in aluminum foil with some apple juice then finish. I've found that adding a water pan to the cooker and spritzing with apple juice every 45 minutes to an hour does a good job. Based on a recommendation by "Sparky", the expert rib cooker over at pelletsmoking.com I also cooked a bit hotter than I have in the past; I went with 275* instead of 225 or 250. St. Louis cut ribs are definitely larger than baby backs. They take up more room. I need to use two levels to get everything on.

On the Mak

Off we go

 After smoking for 5 hours, I slather some sauce on and grill them on the Weber.

Sizzling the sauce

Finished

Nice smoke ring

Dinner is served

You can look at my detailed cooking log here.