Smoked Pork Spare Ribs with Blackberry Citronge Glaze

Good morning people,

I have a new spare rib recipe to share with you just in time for the 4th of July.  Smoked Pork Spare Ribs with Blackberry Citronge Glaze.

Up here near the hinterlands, we have a you pick’em berry farm called Washington Farms and the blackberries are now ripe and ready…..I have to say we love us some blackberries up here when ever we can get them.  These were incredible, and they wound up in a few dishes this week before we were done.  My contribution is these ribs and boy howdy they were good!

To cook the ribs, I used the 3-2-1 method with glazing the ribs with the blackberry BBQ sauce during the last hour.  If you are not familiar with this smoking method it’s simple.  3 hours in the smoker at 250 in smoke, I used apple wood,  2 hours wrapped in foil in smoke and then 1 hour unwrapped with the glaze on, in smoke. The Leon Redbone music playing in the background also helps tenderize the pork ! That and a big glass of ‘Sweet Tea’ and your all set.

On Friday, I returned the grand kids to my most excellent daughter and stopped off at the local food distributor to see what the price for ribs was there.  $1.99 / lb., and they were already cut St Louis style – this is trimmed into a square which eliminates the gristly rib tips.  If you want more info on pork go here, Meathead does a much better job ‘splanin than I do.  Needless to say this was a deal too good to pass up.  I bought 2 :).  I checked them to see if the membrane was removed, it was on one but not on the other so I had to pull it off,  if you want more info on doing this go here.  Thanks Meathead!

So I know this looks like a post about Smoking Spare ribs, and in a way it is but…It’s really about the GLAZE.  What I mean is this is a standard get your smoker ready, get set, and go!  I used a tried and true method (the 3-2-1) that I have talked about before as well as the Memphis dry rub I use on a few different recipes I have already posted. As I said these ribs were already cut St. Louise style, and I needed to remove the membrane off of only one set of the ribs, this cut way down on my prep time.  After making sure all was well with the ribs, I coated them with olive oil and sprinkled a generous amount of the dry rub on them and wrapped them up in plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator over night.

The next morning,after 3/4 of a pot of coffee and a slice or 2 of fresh blackberry pie to get in the mood, I set about putting the smoker together, set the digital thermometer up and took the ribs out of the refrigerator and let them warm up a bit while still in the plastic.  Once the smoker was good and hot, 250 +-, I added the apple wood and set the ribs on their racks and closed everything up.  Remember if you’re opening the lid on the smoker and looking, you’re not cooking.  I let her run for 3 hours adding charcoal when the temp started to drop and kept the apple wood loaded in when it needed more smoke.  At the 3 hour mark, I opened the smoker and took the ribs out of their racks, closed the smoker and sectioned the ribs into 4 pieces and wrapped each section in foil. Re checked the heat and put everything back on the grill for 2 more hours, then set about putting the Blackberry Citronge BBQ glaze together.

Now this is what this post is about!  I said earlier we love us some blackberries here and the local fresh off the cane blackberries were the best we have had in a while.  For the most part each berry was almost 1 inch long and about 3/4 inch in diameter.  These were some big berries!  So let’s turn some of these in to a BBQ sauce/glaze shall we?

This should take you through the remaining foiled cook time for the spare ribs.  Once you’ve gotten the sauce to thicken remove it from the heat and get ready to slather it on your ribs. Take the ribs off the smoker and unwrap each section in turn. Coat the top of the ribs (the meat side) and return it to the smoker grill, cover the smoker between adding back sections.  After you have all the sections coated with the Blackberry BBQ glaze/BBQ sauce, recheck your heat add charcoal and some more wood if needed and let her cook for another hour.  This is where the smoker can loose a lot of heat.  Be careful not to keep the smoker uncovered for any long length of time.  After the hour take them off and eat until the sauce runs off your elbows!  The glaze makes a killer BBQ sauce to pile on for more flavor, I am thinking of using the leftover sauce on that chicken in the freezer when I grill it later this week!

We served this with my mom’s creamed corn ( I may have to share that recipe soon.) a cucumber salad with oil and vinegar dressing and a bottle for each of us of Crispin natural hard pear and blackberry cider……Listening to Pandora web radio on the Leon Redbone channel.  Not much better than this!

Have a safe 4th of July and check back this week, there is a grilled corn recipe your not going to want to miss.  I would like to get it posted before your celebration gets started. And remember let’s end this holiday with as many fingers as we started it with and don’t drink and drive…I would hate to lose a reader.

Take care,

Steve

 

This recipe was linked up on Southern Special with Spatulas on Parade.