BBQ66/17 – Texas Style Beef Ribs:
Texas Style Beef Ribs: If you don’t have the book Pitmaster by Andy Husbands and Chris Hart there is an awesome picture of a beef rib on the front cover:
That has to be the best picture of a beef rib I have ever seen! I had to try and recreate it!
The Meat:
I had previously ordered various cuts of meat from Bob’s Butchers and had one last rack of Sherwood Foods beef ribs left. Bob’s was recommended to me by a few people as the meat is cut to BBQ requirements and is consistent over multiple orders.
This was the previous beef rib cook:
The Prep:
I removed the membrane from underneath, trimmed the fat and this time I also removed the top layer of fat so the rib would form a good bark like the photo. I was a bit nervous removing all this fat as the recipe calls for you to cook the ribs uncovered throughout and in my previous cook they were wrapped for half of the cook which helped get them nice and soft/tender. Also the authors are American and would be using US beef which generally has a higher fat content than UK beef so I was a bit worried the meat would dry out but I wanted to try it!
I splashed some Worcestershire sauce onto the ribs and rubbed it in. I then mixed some fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (blitzed it in a coffee grinder) in a spice shaker and applied it all over the ribs then rubbed it in again.
I set the smoker up with 1x4kg bag of heat beads, 1/3 bucket of leftover heatbeads from the previous smoker cook and some leftover charcoal from the last grill cook.
The Cook:
Once the smoker was at 225F I added some Oak chunks from Smokewood shack and put the ribs on the top shelf.
I added Oak chunks after an hour and again after another hour. 3 hours in I had a look at the ribs, they were starting to form a nice bark:
I kept checking back each hour and spritzed the ribs with water each time. After 8 hours the bark was looking great:
The internal temperature was around 180F and the ribs felt like they needed a bit more cooking so I gave them an extra 90 minutes (9.5 hours total) – the internal temp was still under 190F but the ribs felt done so I took them off.
Look at that bark!
Time to slice them open and hope they are soft and juicy!
Nice smoke ring and they were soft to the touch.
Time to have a good look at one:
It was looking very nice, it didn’t quite have the colour of the one in the book. I think they must have applied more Worcestershire sauce after it was cut so I gave it a try:
Time to Eat:
I love this photo! It’s close to the book cover, not as dark on the meat but I still love it!
You can see the colour of the Worcestershire sauce on the back of the ribs where the membrane was removed:
I made the Hang Fire Sure Fire Slaw again to have with it, this is still the best Slaw recipe I have made:
Summary:
These ribs were the best ones I have cooked yet. The meat was very soft and tender but also very juicy. The simple salt and pepper bark was fantastic. Such a simple cook but great results. I have had great results with the Sherwood Meats beef and pork ribs from Mark at Bob’s Butchers. Highly recommend them.
The recipe said to cook at 275F for 8 hours but I did 225F for 9.5 hours mainly as I didn’t want to dry the ribs out. I will try these again and run it at 275F to see how long they take to cook but also to see if the end result is similar.
Cook Equipment: | Weber Smokey Mountain |
Cook Method: | Low and Slow |
Charcoal: | Heat Beads |
Smoking Wood: | Smokewood Shack Oak |
Cook temperature: | 225F |
Cook time: | 9 1/2 hours |
Internal temperature: | 190F |
Notes: | Try cooking at 275F |
Also in the smoker was Smoky Sausage Pasta (recipe here) it was in for 4 hours total but was drier than usual. It was nice but I will keep it under 3 hours in future. Puddledub sausages this time which were very nice.
Great blog
I got a good bark running at 235 for 7 hours, Worcester sauce and salt n pepper. I used mesquite and cherry woods. Only sprayed it once.
I tried a Macduff beef rib which is a Scottish beef it had high marbling.
Also worth a try is longhorn beef there’s a butcher in Louth, Lincs who breeds his own. Check out Meridian Meats, the owner is Jim
Hi Robert,
Thanks for taking the time to post a comment. I have seen the Macduff beef online before, looks really good quality. Not far from me either so I have no excuse!
I have had a lot of Longhorn beef from Martins Meats, great quality. Some of the best beef I have had!