Competition Smoked Pork Ribs

So for competition, you’re going to smoke some St. Louis style ribs. However, my recommendation is to buy some spareribs and cut them down to St. Louis style because they’re usually cheaper per pound and you can trim them how you’d like. Also, you get to save the left over meat for sausages or soup stock.

Look for 2 – 3 racks of ribs that:

• have straight bones in comparison with each other.
• are fairly thick, you want to have a good amount of meat on the bone.
• have good marbling on the front side of the ribs.
• don’t have too short or too long bones for the turn-in box.

If you’ve bought St. Louis style ribs, go ahead and skip along to the next step, removing the membrane. Otherwise, I’ll show you below how to turn your spareribs into a rack of St. Louis style ribs.

I’m not sure what it’s called, but see the pictures below. This thin layer of meat on the back of the ribs is great for backyard BBQ, but remove it for competition. Simply cut it off with a sharp knife or scissors.

If your ribs still have the thin but tough membrane layer on the back, you need to remove it. Start near the cut side of the thickest ribs and peel up a small piece of the membrane to grab. Next, grab the membrane using a piece of paper towel and pull the membrane off of the ribs. Remove as much of the membrane as possible.

Spareribs come with some extra cartilage that needs to be trimmed off for competition smoked pork ribs. Start by finding the longest rib in the rack, usually this is somewhere in the middle opposed to on either end. From just above this rib cut the cartilage off parallel to the bottom cut of the rack.

A store bought rack of pork ribs will come with up to 13 individual rib bones. We’re going to trim away small or damaged bones from the rack before we smoke it.

Starting from the end of the rack with larger bones, assess whether the first bone is damaged or meatless enough to remove. If so, simply trim off the excess bone parallel to the general rib direction.

Next, move on the end of the rack with smaller trailing rib bones. Cut off the last 1 – 3 ribs. My general rule is if the rib is smaller than my pinky or ring finger, I’ll probably trim it off. Again, this cut will be parallel to the general direction of the ribs.

Melt a stick of butter or two and mix in a small amount of your rub. We’re going to use this as a rib injection to boost flavor and moisture in our ribs. Between each bone in the rack inject a bit of the melted butter in one or two places. It’s hard to overdue the butter injection so don’t be shy.

Start on the back side of the ribs and use any of the left over butter injection as a thin rub base. Use a spice shaker or your fingers to evenly spread a thin layer of your spice rub over the pork ribs. Next, flip the ribs over to the front side and repeat with butter rub base and a layer of spice rub.

For our competition ribs, we’re going to use a slight variation of the 3-2-1 and/or 4-1-1 method. But we don’t really care about cooking time to be honest, outside of planning for turn in. I’ll explain more as we go.

Preheat your smoker to 275F. Next, place the ribs directly on the grate with the bones down. Smoke your ribs like this for 2 – 4 hours depending on how long it takes to build a nice dark color and a durable bark. Your judgement here for moving onto the wrap is going to be appearance instead of temperature or time.

Once your ribs have the correct color and bark, lay out two layers of foil for each rack of ribs. Add brown sugar, butter slices, and honey to the foil and place the ribs onto the mixture meat side down. Next, place more of each ingredient onto the back side of the ribs and double wrap in the aluminum foil. Place the wrapped ribs back onto the smoker meat side down and cook until you’ve reached an internal temperature of 195F.

Once you’ve reached an internal temperature of 195F, start checking your ribs every 20 minutes or so until you believe they are perfectly cooked.

Determining when competition smoked pork ribs are perfectly cooked isn’t easy; it will require some practice. But the basic premise is to determine doneness by feeling the ribs rather than by temperature.

Use tongs or hot gloves to pick up each rack of ribs from one end. If the ribs feel stiff and don’t sag, they still need longer on the grill. If when you pick the ribs up you feel the ribs sag on the other side of the rack then it’s time to investigate further.

Unwrap the rack of ribs and perform the same test. For a perfectly cooked rack of competition smoked pork ribs we want the unwrapped rack to sag on the other end without splitting or tearing. I target for just before skin splitting starts to take place. Remove the ribs from the grill and set them aside to vent for a few minutes.

Once each rack has vented off its excess steam, gently brush a thin layer of your chosen BBQ sauce onto both sides of the ribs. Place the unwrapped ribs back onto the smoker with the bone side down until the sauce has set. When the sauce has set, remove all of the ribs and set them aside in an insulated food tray or cooler.

At about 20 minutes to turn-in, remove your ribs from their rest and begin to break them down into individual ribs and prepare them for presentation.

Spread a thin layer of your BBQ sauce onto the cutting board and place a rack of ribs meat side down onto the board. Cut between each rib and flip the rack over, keeping them in the correct order. Repeat for each rack of ribs.

Choose 6 – 8 ribs of similar size, shape, cut, and overall appearance. Lay them into the turn-in box vertically, stacking cascading layers if necessary.

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Here are some other articles about competition pork ribs that I’ve enjoyed:

• Competition Ribs Recipe and Awared Winning Tricks – AmazingRibs.com
• Smoked Spare Ribs 4-1-1 With Butter Inside – Smoking-Meat.com