Of all the meats to prep after check-in, I did the ribs last. They were the only thing to not get any sort of brine, so they were the easiest to prepare. Before I go into gritty detail, here is a rundown of the food and associated rub and sauce
The ribs: 3 racks of baby back ribs.
The rub: After doing a lot of reading, most competition bbq seems to prefer sweeter tasting sauces and rubs, whereas I normally like things more savory and spicy. I also read that a lot of competitors tend to use store bought rubs as their base and then proceed to doctor them to get the flavor profile they want. To this end, I got the local grocery store's Kansas City Steak Rub, took about 1/3 of the rub out of the container and replaced it with brown sugar. I used this rub on the pork and the chicken.
The sauce: I really, really like the Brownwood Farms Cherry BBQ sauce. It has great flavor and is a nice change from your normal Kansas City style sauce that most people are familiar with. For the sauce I did something similar to the rub. I started with this sauce, mixed in about an equal part apple cider vinegar, then added brown sugar to taste. Equal parts sauce and vinegar was a little too tangy in my opinion. Adding sugar back in helped. When the mix was right I simmered this on the stove top for about an hour. This was all prepared Thursday night before the competition. After it was done cooking I let it cool down then put it in a container in the fridge and packed it up in the cooler Friday morning. As with the rub, this sauce was used on everything but the beef. Brownwood farms is located in Traverse City, MI. They make great sauces.
To prepare the ribs, I hit them with a generous amount of rub, wrapped them in foil and then put them in the cooler. Most people recommend trying to remove the membrane from the bottom side of the ribs. I attempted to do this in the manner I saw in many, many youtube videos. I failed miserably, so rather than hack the back sides of the ribs into an unrecognizable mess, I left them alone. The membrane on these ribs was super thin. I don't know if that cost me first place or not.
The ribs sat in the cooler from when I seasoned them in the middle of the afternoon on Friday until they went onto the smoker at about 6 AM Saturday morning. Ribs were the first meat to be turned in. Lots and lots of people recommend the 3-2-1 method of cooking. It is widely recommended because it works. So when the ribs first went on they got another light sprinkle of rub, then went directly on the smoker. At about 9 am they got taken off, lightly sauced, wrapped in foil and then put back on the smoker for about 2 hours. Right around 11 they got unwrapped, sauced, then put back on the smoker. They were sauced at 11:15 and 11:30. Each time they wee sauced they just had a thin layer of sauce brushed on.
At about 11:45 they were pulled off, cut, boxed. There were seven judges so seven pieces of meat were required to be turned in. In order to get the seven thickest, meatiest pieces I needed all 3 racks. The ribs that were turned in all came from the front third of their respective racks, where the meat on the back of the rib was thickest. I tried for seven pieces that were as close to the same size as possible so they looked uniform in the box. Each rib was hit on all sides with a thin layer of sauce. Before shutting the box they were hit with a spritz of apple juice from a spray bottle to give them a hint of sweetness and a nice sheen.
The smoker was running between 250 and 275 the entire time the ribs were on. They were tender, juicy and not overdone. Most people like their ribs falling off the bone tender, but for a competition that is considered overdone. You want to be able to take a bite of the ribs and have the bite come off easily but still have enough texture so the bite mark remains and the rest of the meat stays on the bone.
That's it for the ribs. A little bit of work and a whole lot of patience turns out some tasty, tasty eats.
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