Smoked Baby Back Ribs

Jump to Recipe

Our next stop on our endless quest for flavor takes us back to the United States somewhere between Memphis and Kansas City. Barbeque (or barbecue, and even BBQ) has as many spellings and abbreviations at it seems to have variations. Likely dating in some form or fashion to the discovery of fire, BBQ has a fun and interesting history and was prevalent across the South dating back to colonial times. You can read more here if you’re so inclined. This iteration is one of our favorites, smoked baby back ribs.

While the smoked meat – in this case ribs – is the hero of the meal, much like Thanksgiving dinner the multitude of complimentary sides that can be paired with the meat provide nearly equal excitement. Many Southern favorites make incredible sidekicks to the meat: Mac and cheese, fried okra, collared greens, fries, cole slaw, potato salad… are you drooling yet? We could go on and on.

And the debates, oh the debates. BBQ lovers near and far swear by their favorite regional flavor profile. Styles, preferred cuts of meat, and sauces all find their way into regional preferences. Some are tangier, some are sweet and spicy, some are mustard based, while others are completely unique (see white sauce from our friends in Alabama). We aren’t here to solve the debate, we’ll leave that up to you. The version we prepared today falls along the sweet, smoky, spicy flavor profile but we have love for all things BBQ. Call us somewhat regionally agnostic with a slight lean to this style. Either way, grab that rack of ribs and let’s go to work!

Preparation: Smoked Baby Back Ribs

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Flavor Bible is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites at no cost to you. Thanks for your support.

You’ll want to get a smoker warmed up to about 225 degrees. The choice is all yours on what type of smoker you would like to use as this is another area of debate from which we’ll refrain (this stuff gets hostile, lol).

For ease of temperature control, excellent features, ease of use, and a clear door to have a visual on the meat we would recommend something like this, especially for the more novice smoker (affiliate link below).

Smoked Baby Back Ribs: Removing the Membrane

You’ll want to remove the membrane from the back of the ribs. It will help your ribs become much more tender and palatable while letting your spices work their way better into the ribs. Simply run a knife underneath the edge and use your hand to help peel it away from the ribs. This is an important step that we cannot emphasize enough.

Season and Smoke the Ribs

Next, season the ribs to your liking. We used Cactus Dust by Everglades. A little Everglades Heat never hurts either if you like a little added spice in your rub. We went with a light rub because we added sauce during and after the cooking process.

An optional step is to add some herbs and apple slices to the water in your smoker (noted in the recipe below). Finally, we used a mixture of half hickory and half apple wood chips to create our smoke. There are other woods out there to choose from and this is yet another area that BBQ’ers near and far will swear by in their own recipes. You will find one or both of these commonly used.

We chose the 2-2-1 method to cook these. This is a simple method of cooking 2 hours directly on the rack with smoke applied, 2 hours wrapped in foil with a small amount of liquid added (we used about a quarter cup of Dr. Pepper, other liquids like apple juice, stout beer and others are also acceptable), and 1 hour directly on the rack and sauced. More details in the recipe card below.

After the fifth hour, remove the ribs and slather with additional sauce. We recommend this easy homemade sauce. It’s sweet with a little kick and full of flavor. Pair with your favorite sides. Have lots of napkins handy. Maybe add a few dampened napkins or pre-packaged wet naps because things are going to get a little messy!

If you liked that, try this…

• Moroccan Short Ribs
• Buttermilk Fried Chicken Tenders
• Cherry Apple Braised Short Ribs
• Pumpkin Spiced Braised Short Ribs
• Meemaw’s Calico Beans

Help Us Grow!

Once you finish scrubbing the glorious smoke smell off of your person and cleaning up BBQ sauce from pretty much everywhere we would love for you to rate and comment below. Tell us how you added your own spin to these smoked baby back ribs. Maybe even give us a share on social media with #flavorbible. You can also follow us on our social pages by clicking the links at the bottom of the page. We look forward to sharing future recipes with you that are inspired from all over the globe.

Follow us on social media!

• 
• 
• 
•