Smoked Baby Back Ribs
Smoking-Meat.com is supported by its readers. We may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you if you buy through a link on this page.
Read this article without ads
This recipe for smoked baby back ribs will yield ribs that are more competition style. This means they produce a tender bite of meat that pulls from the bone easily but the meat does not fall from the bone.
If you prefer ribs that are more tender, simply cook the ribs longer and they will continue to tenderize.
I have also included an alternate method below for super tender ribs.
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 hours
- Smoker Temp: 225°F (107°C)
- Meat Finish Temp: 190°F (88°C)
- Recommended Wood: Apple and/or Hickory
- 1-3 Slabs of baby back ribs
- Regular yellow mustard
- Jeff's rub
- Jeff's sauce (purchase the recipe here)
Normally the first thing you do to pork ribs is to remove the membrane from the boney side. This is not something done in restaurants usually but it's one of those things that makes homemade barbecue so much better than what you can find commercially.
The membrane is a thick plastic-like covering over the boney side of the ribs that really needs to come off in my opinion,
To remove the membrane, place the pork ribs meaty side down. Insert a semi-sharp object under the first layer of membrane and pry it up until you can get ahold of it.
Grab it with a paper towel if you need to in order to get a better grip.
Pull the membrane clean off.
Apply a thin layer of yellow mustard onto the bone side of the ribs to help the rub to adhere to the ribs.
Note: It is perfectly fine to skip the mustard and just apply the rub directly to the meat if you prefer.
Sprinkle enough of my rub onto the ribs to cover the meat well. You should not be able to see the meat if you do it correctly. My rub is low on salt and high on flavor and compliments ribs extremely well.
Let the rub sit on the bone side of the ribs for about 10 minutes or until it starts looking “wet” which means the rub, mustard and pork juices have mingled to create a nice paste.
At this point, turn the ribs over and repeat the same mustard and rub application to the meaty side of the ribs.
You will notice that I used the original rib rub on the outside racks and my new Texas style rub on the one in the center. All of them were good but I still think the original rib rub is hard to beat for pork and most other things when it comes to that perfect balance between sweet and spicy.
Leave them sitting on the counter while you go out and get the smoker ready to smoke.
Set up your smoker for cooking at 225°F (107°C) using indirect heat. If your smoker uses a water pan, fill it up.
Once the smoker is preheated and ready to go, it's time to cook!
Place the ribs bone side down directly on the smoker grate.
If you are short on space, you can use a rib rack if you need to. These allow for a lot more ribs in a smaller amount of space.
Smoke the ribs until they are as tender as you like them. This will probably take about 5 hours at 225°F (107°C) or perhaps an hour longer if the ribs have a little more meat on them.
To check for tenderness, pick them up on one end with a pair of tongs and if they almost bend in half and start to break, they are ready to eat.
Place seasoned baby back ribs directly on smoker grate for 2 hours at 225°F (107°C).
At the 2 hour mark, wrap the baby ribs in foil or place them in a foil pan, spritzing the ribs with apple juice just before closing them up or covering them with foil over the top.
Cook the ribs at 225°F (107°C) for 2 hours in the wrapped configuration.
At the 4 hour mark, remove the ribs from the foil and place them back onto the grate to continue cooking for an additional 1 hour to firm up the bark and finish them off. This is also a great time to sauce them if that is how you like them.
To summarize this more tender alternative:
- Smoke the ribs for 2 hours directly on the grate at 225°F (107°C)
- Wrap the ribs in foil and smoke another 2 hours at 225°F (107°C)
- Unwrap the ribs and place them back on the grate. Cook for an additional hour to firm them up and set the bark.
Once the ribs are tender to your liking, remove them from the smoker.
At this point they can be wrapped in foil and kept warm in the oven for a couple of hours or you can get busy slicing and serving.
To slice, I have the best luck turning them bone side up so I can see the direction and location of the bones. This allows me to slice right between them with great accuracy.
- Figure on about 2 eaters per rack of smoked baby back ribs.
- Serve with some of my barbecue sauce on the side for best results. This allows folks to try them with just the rub (my favorite way to eat them) and if they just have to have sauce (some folks do) they have it available.
- If you want to check the temperature of the ribs, do so between the bones making sure the probe is only in the meat. Competition style ribs are done at around 190°F (88°C) and yield a rib that is tender but does not fall off the bone.
- Be sure to smoke ribs with indirect heat. If you have any radiant heat getting to them, they will burn during this long cook time. This goes for almost anything but you really want ribs to look nice and this is best achieved by keeping them in indirect heat the entire time.
Printable Recipe
Smoked Baby Back Ribs
Ingredients
- 1-3 Slabs of baby back ribs
- Regular yellow mustard
- Jeff's original rub
- Jeff's barbecue sauce
Instructions
- Remove membrane from the bone side of ribs using a paper towel to get a good grip.
- Apply a thin coat of yellow mustard to the bone side.
- Sprinkle enough of Jeff's original rub onto the ribs to cover the meat.
- Once the rub gets that typical "wet" look, flip them over and repeat the mustard and rub on the meaty side.
- Set up your smoker for smoking at about 225°F (107°C) using indirect heat.
- Once the smoker is ready, place the ribs directly on the smoker grate, or you can use a rib rack if you need to fit more.
- Let the ribs smoke cook for about 5 hours or until they are as tender as you like them.
- Sauce the ribs about 30 minutes before they are finished for best results.
- When the ribs are finished cooking, remove them from the smoker, slice 'em up and serve.
I tried your 2-2-1 method for smoking baby back ribs. They came out perfect! This will be my go-to method for smoking baby ribs.
Thank for sharing…Bill
Good and simple recipe. My only change to it is that sometimes I like to get a good smoke on them (~2 hrs) and then finish cooking them inside in the oven.
Made the smoked baby back ribs today on my very basic and inexpensive barrel smoker. Used your basic rub. Cook time was dead on with obsessive monitoring of temp. Had many comments from my guests saying they were the best ribs they’ve ever had. Looking forward to smoking something new out of the smoking meat cookbook next week. Thanks again.
Fyi to fellow home cooks. If you dont like spice maybe cut back on the cayenne about half if using the rub recipe called for. Still delicious.
Why don’t you get with the rest of the internet selling world and price your products to include FREE SHIPPING???
Brent,
Thank you for your feedback!
We have already done this for tshirts, books and cases of product. individual items are not there yet and unfortunately it’s not as simple as just paying everyone’s shipping for them. Someone has to pay the post office and UPS whether its the customer or myself.
Most companies who offer free shipping simply raise their prices to include the shipping cost and then it “looks” like free shipping but in essence, customers are still paying for it.
At our current pricing, if I had to pay everyone’s shipping for them on individual items, I would no longer be profitable and the products would go away.
Jeff, I was wondering if you can provide what the internal meat temps should be at any given stage. The engineer in me wants to measure, test, and validate. For example, I tried a 3-1-1 method yesterday. I smoked 2.2 lbs baby back ribs in a 225 F smoker for 3 hours and the internal temp was already at 187 F after 3 hours. I am thinking that if the internal temp was that high, that 3 hours was too much. I know that the collagens break down at a certain temp but I am trying to understand how long the meat needs to cook at a certain temp before they are done. Can you give any guidance such as 1. smoke at 225-250 for 3 hours or until internal meat temp reaches X degrees F. Then wrap in foil and cook at 225 F for 1 hour or until internal meat temp reaches X degrees F. Then unwrap and continue to cook at 225 F for one more hour or until internal meat temp reaches X degrees F.
Regards,
Jerry
Jerry, I totally understand. Ribs are not something that we have used temperature on until recently. The idea is that the meat is so close to the bone, it’s really difficult, but not impossible, to get an accurate reading. Most just cook ribs by tenderness and time.
I agree that this would be a great thing to know and I will work this into a future newsletter very soon.
I tried some “extra-meaty” baby back ribs on my pellet smoker yesterday, Memphis style — that is, rub and mop, but no sauce, and no wrap. They weren’t as good as I had hoped. I think the higher ratio of meat to bark in the “extra-meaty” reduced the overall flavor intensity.
i was considering two ways to remedy this:
1) more rub before smoking, and more rub in the mop, and/or
B) using a smoking tube with extra pellets for the first couple of hours.
Jeff, i’m new at this — do you have any thoughts? thanks in advance.
I would try to find baby back ribs that are NOT extra meaty. As it turns out, this is a marketing term that just means they left some of the pork loin attached. Pork loin, as you probably know, is very lean and when you cook it past 145°F, it gets dry and tasteless. There is no place for that on a slab of baby backs. Purchase the thin racks that are just baby back meat only and you’ll end up with better flavor and more tender and juicy meat.
Wow – this was my first time smoking ribs and I did the 2-2-1 technique and it was AMAZING! My wife bought me the Franklin Manifesto for Christmas and he only had a technique for Spare Ribs. So I checked your site as I have read other recipes on here before and it seems like you knew what you were talking about. Glad I went with your recipe! I will be buying your book next! Thanks for the great directions.
Jeff I finally got to use your sauce and rub on some ribs last night I will say well worth the 18.00 we really liked it.
They look really good, I get real meaty baby backs at Sam’s club here in Minnesota
but the price difference between baby backs and spare ribs the trim down to a meaty St Louis cut causes me to choose spare ribs every time I am really looking forward to trying your rub and sauce on my next batch. Both have really basic ingredients. so it must be the amounts that set them apart from all the others?