How To Smoke Pork Ribs

5 from 9 votes

These Pork Ribs smoked on a pellet grill are my favorite meat to smoke. The flavor of the smoke combined with that sticky, sweet sauce makes these smoked ribs the best you will ever taste.

Course Main Course

Cuisine American, BBQ

Keyword Pork Ribs, Smoked Ribs

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 6

Servings

Calories 890kcal

Equipment

Smoker or Grill

Ingredients

6 lbs Pork Ribs St. Louis or Baby Backs (2 Racks)
1/4 cup Yellow Mustard
1/3 cup BBQ Dry Rub
6 tbsp Squeeze Butter Margerane
4 tbsp Honey
1/2 cup Brown sugar
3/4 cup BBQ Sauce

Instructions

Preheat your smoker to 250 degrees F.
Trim the ribs and remove the membrane from the back side of the rack. Brush a light coat of mustard on both sides and season liberally with a dry rub. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, and place ribs on the pit.
Place the ribs on the smoker, and don’t open the door for 3 hours. This is when the ribs will absorb the most smoke. Check the ribs to see if a bark has developed. If your rub has adhered to the meat, gently spray your ribs with cooking spray.
If you’re happy with the color and the meat has an internal temperature of 160-170 degrees F., it's time to wrap the ribs.
Lay the ribs down on the foil bone side up. Drizzle honey, squeeze butter, brown sugar, and dry rub. Wrap the ribs up tight and return them to the smoker. Continue smoking for another hour.
Gently unwrap and probe the meat. Generally, ribs are ready to eat at an internal temperature of 200-210 degrees F depending on personal preference. More important than the temperature, use the probe thermometer to test for tenderness. Poke the meat in between the bones to see if the ribs are tender. The probe should go into the meat with very little tension. If the meat still seems tough wrap the ribs back up and continue cooking for another 30-60 minutes and check again.
Once the ribs are tender, you may serve them dry or sauce them. If saucing, unwrap the foil and fold it over to create a tray to hold the juices to sauce the top. Brush on a thin layer of sauce and smoke for another 15 minutes. Depending on how saucy you like your ribs, you can sauce a few times. Allow time for the sauce to adhere to the meat before slicing the ribs.
When cutting the ribs, it’s easier to turn the rack upside down so you can see the bones better and make clean cuts. You may lose a little sauce, but you can always baste a little extra on top when you turn them over.

Notes

These measurements are estimated and will depend on the actual size of the ribs. Use your judgement and play around with the ingredients. You may like to go easy on the rub and heavy on the sauce or vice versa.

Remember we are having fun and experimenting. Most pit masters have taken hundreds of racks to perfect their methods...but its a tasty road to the top of that hill.

Nutrition