Last weekend we celebrated Shelby’s grandmother’s 90th birthday party, so there was no spare time for BBQ. I really had the itch to smoke some pork ribs though, so I told some friends to plan on coming over for some good food and fun regardless of the weather.
Luckily we had some perfect weather with temps in the 60s, clear skies, and lots of sun. I got the smoker setup early, had the ribs on by 0800, had the beans going by 0900, and had a celebratory Irish Coffee soon after.
One of the reasons we invited several people over is that I needed an excuse to cook two racks of ribs. I’ve been doing a lot of research of different techniques for BBQ and wanted to find out for myself which method works better for pork.
Butcher paper or aluminum foil?
Ribs went into the smoke, meat side up, at 275 degrees for three hours. At that point they got a little spritz of apple cider vinegar, a nice coating of sauce, and were wrapped in their respective blankets. This time they went back on with the meat side down.
After a couple more hours in the smoke, I flipped the ribs back over, so the meat side was up again, and unwrapped them for one final hour in the smoke bath. The final results were two racks of ribs with a crispy bark and great flavor, both of which were tender. But the ribs in the foil took tenderness to a whole new level.
Everyone agreed that the foil ribs were the better of the two, although neither way bad. Thus putting to rest, at least in my mind, the debate of butcher paper versus foil for ribs.
In fact, the foil ribs were Guy Fieri’s tenderness equivalent of “flavor town”, I just haven’t quite figured out my catch phrase yet.
