1. Always start with quality loin back ribs. (If you polish a turd you have a polished turd)
2. Steady smoker temp. I like 250 degrees for mine.
3. Don't add too much smoke. I only add some wood chunks for smoking in the first 30 minutes and that's plenty. Ribs can take on too much and be over-smoky.
4. After de-membraning and trimming, I let them soak about 8 hours in a blend of apple juice, with a can of peach nectar and apricot nectar with some salt (and other things).
5. While bringing the smoker up to temp in the morning, take the ribs out of the soaking cooler and let them lay out a good 45 minutes and then apply a light dusting of rub. Sometimes I smear a coating of mustard before applying the rub.
6. Cook 4-5 hours and then wrap in foil and return to smoker. Lower temp to about 225 degrees and cook around another hour. These aren't exact times....that's where practice and past experience comes in to play. Every rack of ribs is different.
If you leave in foil too long they get mushy and fall apart too easily. Just long enough to be tender and pull easily from the bone is what I look for.
7. Remove from foil, slather with favorite sauce (if you want a "wet rib" like we do) and return to smoker 15-20 minutes to "sticky up".
8. Stuff yo belly!

 

salt n plenty of pepper. slow cook with wood. start with the bone side down untill you see the meat pulling from the bone then flip. if you do it right you only need to turn once. if the the ribs are not sweating then increase the heat. I like to use the tripod beause i turn the grill and cook more evenly.

 

The thread title reminded me of this story......

In the garden of eden God told Adam he was going to make him the perfect mate, companion, friend, a person to please him in every way, they could share an external life of bliss together.

Adam asked "how much will it cost me?"
God said "an arm and a leg"

Adam thought for a minute and asked "what can I get for a rib?"


And that, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

 

I forgot to mention that the above method is what I use in a Backwoods smoker. It is a vertical smoker with racks and there is some rack rotation involved during the cooking as well.

If I'm only doing two or three racks of baby backs at home on my large Big Green Egg ceramic smoker I use a somewhat different process.