Sweet Honey Baby Back Ribs

05 Jun, 2024

Baby back ribs are one of my favorite things to smoke. In this video we use a standard rib technique to cook perfect baby back ribs. In the end, we sauce with an optional delicious Japanese bbq sauce. Whether you use this sauce or not you can leverage this recipe.

Meat Church How To YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/DZiRcWvqp68

Ingredients

1 rack baby back ribs
Meat Church Texas Sugar BBQ Rub to taste
1 T yellow mustard
Bachan's Sweet Honey BBQ Sauce to taste

Wrap

1 T, Agave Nectar
1/4 C Brown Sugar
1/4 C, unsalted butter, cut into pats

Prepare your smoker or pellet grill
Prepare your smoker at 275 degrees. We used a Traeger Timberline XL with cherry pellets for the cook in this video, but hickory, pecan or apple wood would be good choices for this smoke.

Prep the ribs
Flip the ribs meat side down and remove the membrane off the back of the rack. This is very easily accomplished by grabbing the membrane with a paper towel and pulling it off. Removing the membrane will allow your rub to penetrate into the meat more effectively and also provide a more pleasant eating experience.

Apply a light coat of mustard all over the ribs to act as a binder for the seasoning.

Season both sides of the the ribs with Texas Sugar seasoning.

Allow the seasoning to adhere for 15 minutes or up to one hour.

Smoke the Ribs
Place the ribs meat side up in the smoker.

Optionally, spritz the ribs with apple cider vinegar about 90 minutes into the cook if they look dry.

Continue smoking the ribs
Smoke the ribs until you get a beautiful mahogany color. In this video, that took 2 1/2 hours.

Wrap the ribs in aluminum foil to protect that perfect color. Lay out 2 long pieces of aluminum foil. Create a bed with 5 pats of butter, 1 small handful of brown sugar and a heavy bead of agave nectar. Lay the ribs meat side up on the sweet concoction. Close the foil tightly.

Return the ribs to the smoker and continue to cook until meat has started to pull back. You are looking for tenderness while probing with an instant read thermometer which is typically around an internal temp of 203 - 205. This typically takes 90 min. - 2 hours or so depending on the size of the ribs. It took just under 2 hours in this video.

Finish the Ribs
Remove the ribs from the smoker. Open the foil and create a foil boat with the ribs meat side up.

Apply the Bachan's Sweet Honey BBQ sauce.