How to Smoke Beef Ribs _ Mad Scientist BBQ

That's so good .

Hey guys , welcome to barbecue .

I'm Jeremy Odor .

And today I'm gonna teach you how to cook my absolute favorite barbecue item beef short ribs .

Before we jump in .

It's really important that we talk about the ribs themselves .

You have to get beef short ribs .

Sometimes they're called dino ribs .

What you don't want are things like beef back ribs or the four bone ribs .

Sometimes they're called short ribs as well .

Sometimes they're called chuck ribs .

What you want is the three bone humongous beef ribs because those are the ones that are absolutely amazing .

Like this one , this one , if you look at the back side , it is three bones , it is just over £7 .

So these are going to be really meaty ribs and that's exactly what you want .

So these look really good .

There's great marbling and that's why beef ribs are so special because the marbling in here makes them so darn juicy and the amazing bark you can get on the outside makes this , in my opinion the best barbecue item out there .

I'll give you a quick look at the marbling at the camera , focus on it , but you guys can see that there is a lot of intramuscular fat in there on this .

We have simple prep to do , we're going to clean off the top .

So we have meat exposed all throughout the top surface .

That way we have incredible bark because when we're doing beef ribs , we're thinking about bark .

Bark is gonna be super , super important because you have one opportunity to create flavor on the outside and the rest is just going to be tender juicy meat on the inside .

So we want to make sure we maximize the smoke flavor that we get .

Ok .

I'm going to take these out of the package and we're going to talk really briefly about how we're going to trim them .

We'll get them trimmed , seasoned and on the smoker , these are gonna be big , so heavy .

It's crazy .

Now when it comes to trimming this , it's going to be a little different than brisket with brisket .

We want to leave a layer of fat on the top side to protect the meat .

But this has so much marbling and connective tissue that we don't need any fat to protect it .

We just want to build amazing bark on the outside .

So this fat on the top layer , we're going to trim off completely and expose all the meat .

And then this little layer of muscle that we have , we're going to trim off as well because that muscle is actually pretty lean and it's above a layer of fat before the meat that we really want to eat .

So we're just going to trim this up , clean it off .

I'll show you what that looks like when you get down to the silver skin just above the layer of meat that we want .

One way to get that off is by taking the knife and sliding it underneath the silver skin and then working the knife back and forth all the way to the end .

And you have this big strip of silver skin that you took off without cutting into the meat .

Too much .

So to season today , we're going to use just 50 50 salt and pepper .

I think that this meat is so awesome that I don't want to cover it up with a bunch of other seasonings .

I just want salt pepper smoke and then just delicious succulent meat .

So this is so flavorful , so amazing that you don't need to cover it up with anything .

But if you want to use another rub , you can just be mindful of rubs that have a lot of sugar in them because they can burn .

So we're gonna cook this at about 275 degrees , but we may bump the temperature up or we might lower it down just depending on what it's looking like .

But with sugar it can burn .

So there are a number of good rubs out there .

I think the Oak Ridge Black Ops rub is really , really tasty .

Uh , there are some meat Je Rubs that I think are really good .

Harry Sue's Rub .

I've tried .

There are lots of choices , but for me , I think something simple , like salt and pepper is all you need .

Just like a great steak because the meat is going to be so good .

We're not gonna want to cover it up with anything else we want the meat to shine through .

That's a pretty heavy coat of rub .

And there are two reasons for that .

Number one , this is actually maybe there are three reasons .

But the first is , it's a big cut of meat .

So we need plenty of salt .

The second is when I put a pretty heavy coat of rub on there , it's going to help with the bark formation .

And then the third reason is I can only really season this thing from one side .

I could put seasoning on the back side .

But in my experience , it just kind of falls off and doesn't really get eaten anyway .

And so it just kind of a waste that is all you need to do in terms of preparation .

Now you put it on .

In one note , I like to put the thicker end toward the fire .

At first , I just think that the thicker end can take a little bit more abuse , but we're just going to stick it on there and let it cook and we have one more rack of beef ribs .

This is the way I'm recommending because it's my favorite way to do it .

But I'm gonna do something different today with the second rack .

It's gonna be trimmed the exact same way .

But I'm gonna use a different rub that I have inside just to test it out .

So you can get kind of a rub review within the broader how to smoke beef ribs video .

I get the right here's our second rack of beef ribs .

And as you can see , this one is incredibly well marbled too .

This is kind of what I've come to expect from Porter Road .

I've been using their stuff for a long time and it's always been great .

So what we're gonna do with this rack is I went inside and looked over a bunch of rubs that I've got and thought about doing the Black Ops , but I've had that a bunch of times , but I'm going to use this the blues hog , bold and beefy .

Now these guys are like competition veterans and they've won like a countless number of competitions .

So I want to see how this works on a rack of beef ribs .

Let's find out .

Look at that marbling .

This is gonna be good .

Now , this rub has the second ingredient listed as sugar .

So we're just gonna have to be mindful of that and just watch it and make sure nothing burns and we're going to check back in probably about an hour just to see the progress we're running at 275 .

I'm using pecan wood because that's just my favorite .

You can use oak .

You can use hickory .

You can use any good smoking wood , but because there's so much flavor in these ribs , you want to really compliment it .

Well , so I would use something that has a strong enough flavor .

So I would probably stay away from apple or cherry or something like that .

Stick with the old standards of oak hickory pecan stuff like that .

I almost forgot .

One crucial step is tallow .

So I prefer the wa I think it just has the best texture and the best flavor .

It's just amazing .

So what I'm gonna do with this is I'm gonna take it .

I'm gonna pour some into an aluminum tray , put it in the smoker to smoke the tallow so that it's infused with smoked flavor when we add it to those beef ribs , which I'll show you when it comes time to wrap .

All right , we have it in the tray .

We're gonna put it in .

When I put it in at first it's going to melt and it's going to be basically clear .

But by the time we're ready to use this , it's gonna have taken like a golden almost honey color from all the smoke flavor that it's absorbed .

The .

If you guys think the meat in today's video looks good .

Well , it came from Porter Road .

Porter Road is sponsoring today's video and they are an online butcher shop .

So if you want cuts that you can't get at your local grocery store , like beef ribs .

Say my very favorite thing you can use Porter Road because they will ship things directly to your door and they offer cuts that aren't usually found in grocery stores .

Whether you're looking for chicken or pork or beef .

Porter Road .

Has you covered ?

Another thing they do is they raise their animals ethically , these cattle are out munching on grass and there are no added hormones , no antibiotics .

I mean , it's just really taking care of the animal .

Well , which has the effect of making great quality meat .

So it's a win , win .

It's a win for the consumer .

It's a win for the animal .

And to me that's ideal , they also dry age their beef for 14 days .

So some of those enzymes can start doing their work , start creating more flavor and a more tender product .

So I've been using them for a long time , like I said , and we will continue to use them for a long time .

They make awesome stuff and Porter Road is offering 15% off your first order to my viewers .

So just click on the link in the description and the discount will be applied automatically check them out .

Can't recommend them highly enough .

We missed the one hour check in .

It's been about four hours now since we put these on , but nothing has changed .

I've been doing everything exactly the same way .

I haven't taken a peek yet , but I'm curious to see how these are looking .

I bet they're looking really good already .

Ok .

At this point , they're looking really good .

The bark is forming really well .

But the side that's facing the fire , I want to switch the opposite way because I don't want that to get too dried out or anything like that .

And the beef ribs in front , I'm going to move to the back and vice versa because I want as even cooking as possible .

I take both of these , they're both in about the mid 1 70 .

So that's good when they get to about 190 degrees .

I'm going to wrap them because at that point , the bark will be exactly like I want and then I just want to soften the bark a little bit and get these things tender .

Right .

At this point , I'm gonna start spraying 50 50 water and apple cider vinegar .

You can use 50 50 beer and vinegar , 50 50 water and apple juice or apple cider vinegar and apple juice , whatever you want to use .

But I found this to be effective and it kind of makes the apple cider vinegar go further .

But the bark is forming the way I want , I don't want anything to dry out .

Now , I've had it where beef ribs dry out on the outside and you kind of lose the smoked flavor lose the richness .

I don't want that to happen .

So we're going to spray with this .

Just a healthy spray on all sides .

Here .

Oftentimes I don't spray briskets very much or even at all .

Just depending on how the bark is looking and how the fats running , et cetera .

I need to spray these beef ribs because they don't have a layer of fat protecting them on the top and I need to keep the bark soft enough that when I wrap it and finish it off , it's still there .

It hasn't washed away , but it's not dry and crusty because dry and crusty kind of removes some of the smoked flavor .

It's just a real bummer when you have a great piece of meat and you kind of dried it out the outside .

So for that reason , I'm spraying these , we'll check back in in a couple of hours when these guys are ready to wrap .

Ok .

We're 7.5 hours in .

So we're going to check to see if we have the bark that we need .

And then I'm going to check the temperature .

Usually it's around 190 degrees when everything lines up .

And I have the bark the way I want it and I have to pull back on the bones the way I want it .

But we're going to see just for curiosity's sake .

All right , it's looking really good .

So , right .

So the one in the back is just over 1 90 .

The one in the front is just below 1 90 .

About what I figured .

But these have great bark on them .

It's time to wrap them up and get them tender , want to soften the bark on the outside just a little bit .

So we take it a little bit further than we want it to be when we're done .

Now .

It's really important .

You guys have a good digital instant thermometer .

I think that the thermo pen is by far the best .

It's waterproof .

It just lasts forever .

It takes a licking and keeps on taking and it gives you a reading in one second .

So I'll put a link for this in the description , but this is by far my favorite .

I highly highly recommend it .

It's one of those purchases where it seems expensive , but you're going to save money in the end by less meat that you ruin and money you don't waste on cheap thermometers that break .

Anyway , let's wrap these guys up .

Look at these .

Oh , yeah .

And that's Bartle .

That is going to be a huge piece of wood right there .

Ok .

Everything's still soft .

We're good .

We're golden .

So we're going to wrap it with two sheets of butcher paper , 18 inches wide and maybe 48 inches long .

You can use a little bit less than that .

But I always like to have more butcher paper than I need rather than too little .

The smoke tallow is now , golden and smoky and we're going to cover the outside of this with the tallow because that's going to increase the juiciness of the bark on the outside .

So we'll pour this over the top .

Normally I let this cool , but I forgot about it .

Not a big deal .

Now , the outside is coated in fat .

We're gonna wrap it up .

Now we're gonna wrap this and for the final turn , we're gonna want to make sure we keep the meat side up because if you put the meat side down , it can get a little soupy and you can wash away some of that bark that you worked so hard to create .

So I've done it both ways .

I've not noticed a huge difference , but I've just gotten better results when the meat side is up then .

So meat side back up , we're going to do the exact same thing with the other rocket beef ribs .

Oh , yeah .

These look really good too .

Oh Juice .

When I was spoken with the thermo earlier , each hole was like striking oil as a geyser of rendered fat dripping out .

You can smell the rub too .

It smells really nice .

Is gonna be good .

Yeah , that's gonna be a miss .

What was your one note about the towel ?

Usually I'll pull the towel out maybe an hour before I intend to wrap that way .

It gets to like a semi solid consistency and then it's easier to spread around everywhere .

But if it's liquid and hot like that , not a big deal , you can just pour it on there , wrap it up .

It will still have pretty much the same effect .

Now , one thing that's important to notice is if you're taking the temperature of these beef ribs , after you wrap them and put them back on , they will have dropped like 20 degrees .

You're gonna take your probe , put it in and it's gonna say 1 65 and you're gonna think to yourself .

Oh , no .

What did I do wrong ?

Don't worry .

It's totally ok .

That's just part of the process and as it heats back up again and it gets to a final temperature of usually 1 95 to 200 I've noticed that it's pretty easy to overcook beef ribs , but you just want it to feel like butter when the probe goes in and that's probably gonna be in another hour and a half , two hours , something like that .

So it'll drop down , but then it will quickly rise in temperature again .

And when we hit that 195 mark , then I'm going to really start probing to feel for tenderness .

Once it feels perfectly tender , then we pull them off and let them rest .

Now , if you're going to do a long rest like a brisket , it's important that you maintain moisture in that package .

So you can take saran wrap and cover the outside and then put it in a low oven to keep it , you know , hot .

But I generally think that beef ribs do better with a shorter rest .

So a couple hours to come down to temperature to about 150 degrees or so , 1 40 is maybe even a little bit better .

But then you can slice them up and they're going to be juicy and all that fat is going to be in liquid form and whoever takes a bite of it is going to be a very happy camper .

Yeah .

And now we just maintain temperature and weight .

The beef ribs that we season with the blues hog rub are done .

Let's check on the ones that we season with just salt and pepper because those are the ones that I really care about .

So let's check those out , by the way , if you don't know , that is a pretty heavy door .

So the , the one arm lift of that door usually gets a grunt from me .

So , so that's why .

But let's just see here .

1 99 .

Ok .

And bump to 200 .

Yeah , that feels done .

So , one of the cool things about beef ribs , even though they're so thick is that you get heat on the top side .

But then those bones conduct so much heat throughout the meat , you know , from one end to the other that it cooks relatively quickly for how thick that piece of meat is .

So this one is ready to rest .

So I just unwrapped these guys to take a quick peek and we have great bark .

It's softened up just a little bit .

So there's nothing crusty at all but it is packed full of juice .

So if I squeeze this juice just starts coming out , this is exactly what we're looking for and we haven't overcooked it so badly that this bone has just fallen off .

Now , this little bone , for some reason , a lot of times just breaks off when you cook it to tenderness , sometimes it doesn't .

But if you overcook it , it's pretty much guaranteed to separate and you have basically two bones attached and one that just flops around in the butcher paper .

So I'm really happy with this and let's just let this guy cool and we'll slice it open and see how it tastes .

Ok .

We've let these rest for a little while .

Ideally , we'd let it rest a little bit longer .

Wait till it gets down to about 140 degrees to slice it .

But we're about to lose light .

So we're going to slice them , taste them and give you our thoughts .

One important note , don't throw this away , use it to start your next fire .

Here we go .

Oh Look , forget this .

This is unfair guys .

This is just absolutely unfair .

There is so much juice in this .

It's unbelievable .

I mean , and it smells incredible and this bark .

Look at that bark .

Unreal tender juicy meat , crazy bark .

This is why beef ribs are so special .

Guys don't tell me you don't want to take a bite right out of the screen right now .

I know I do one last note about this guys is you can see that these muscle fibers have kind of relaxed .

They're no longer , you know , full of water .

It's because we're cooking on a cooker that has lots and lots of air flow .

So there's lots of evaporative cooling .

A lot of times I'll see stuff on Tik Tok where people do things like beef ribs and they cut into it and it might be tender and it might have a lot of water .

But the muscle fibers are still taught because they're full of water .

You can see it a lot of times because the meat looks kind of gray and then those muscle fibers just don't give , they don't have the same fall apart during a bite texture that something like this will have because of that air flow .

So for all those reasons , this is going to be amazing .

And I didn't even mention yet that this port of road meat is all dry aged .

So I think this is going to blow minds .

I cannot wait to get into it .

Look at this , even the cut from the end just juice .

This is why beef ribs are so darn special .

I cannot wait to try these .

Oh Look at that marbling .

Look at that marbling guys beef ribs if you never bought them , they're worth your while .

Oh my goodness .

This looks incredible .

Let's get a good look for the camera .

Yeah , I gonna help me taste test today .

My wife Erica is gonna be helping me .

She loves beef ribs .

Here's an opportunity for her to eat some of the barbecue and give her thoughts .

We're gonna start with just plain old salt and pepper because we want that to be the baseline and then we're gonna try the new rub .

Ok .

So when you think of beef ribs , what do you think of ?

It's like a giant brisket .

Burn end , correct .

Yeah .

It's like all the best parts of a brisket , but a huge chunk of meat on a bone for me .

All right .

I can only eat so much of it .

It's very rich .

There you go .

There's a chunk for you .

I'll tear off a chunk for me .

But it's nice .

If you can tear off the meat , it's not bad .

Ok .

Well , you didn't even wait .

That's barbecue right there , man .

Smoke salt pepper on the outside , soft and juicy on the inside .

It's like if you cook the world's perfect brisket , a slice of the point would be like that .

But the whole thing is like that and the bark is perfect .

The bark has texture but it's not dried out .

It's not stringy .

You know , sometimes you can get bark that gets stringy and you're kind of like gnawing on the bark almost like beef jerky .

But this has texture but you bite through it and it just melts into the fat .

I was gonna get to take a bite of the rib .

Here we go .

Mm .

That's how I like to evaluate .

Um , you gotta take it back .

What more , more caveman style that bite might have even been better .

Yeah , it's so good .

It's perfectly round because it just , it's so tender .

It can you see the bite marks ?

All right .

So we got these bite marks .

It's not falling apart but it's perfectly tender .

So when you take a bite , it just , it just gives .

Hm .

All right .

I gotta stop .

Ok , let's try the other .

If I can only eat one bite of barbecue , it's that if you like beef , this is the answer to all you've been dreaming of , man .

Disclaimer here .

I met the blue .

So guys , I really , really , really like them .

They're awesome dudes .

They gave me some rub to try .

So I thought might as well try it .

Do you wanna do the honors ?

She'll probably like this better than salt and pepper because she usually does like more complex seasonings .

Oh , wow .

That was even more tender .

That's so good .

Ok .

Um I think this is nice but a lot like competition style barbecue .

I wouldn't wanna keep eating it .

I feel like I could eat £2 of that salt and pepper beef rib and it's already so rich with the fat and stuff that I feel like I'd eat some of this and then eventually I'd just be like , uh , I don't wanna eat anymore .

I don't know .

What do you think ?

I'm the opposite because you love pepper .

He always puts so much pepper on everything .

And I like , mainly just salt .

So I taste more saltiness in this one .

I think I would probably like the salt and pepper only if it was less pepper .

But this is so good and , and this one just happens to be more tender .

Mm .

So I put this in the category of the ones that I really like .

I would seldom use because I'm a salt and pepper guy , of course .

But this the Oak Ridge black Ops .

Um Holy cow from Meat Church .

I've tried , I've really liked .

There are a bunch of great seasonings out there on the market .

Just find the one you like and you can use that or you can use just plain salt and pepper and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that .

So , what are your thoughts on beef ribs ?

They're the best barbecue item if you ever can get them from a place that does Central Texas style barbecue .

Definitely order them if they're not sold out .

Yes .

So if you ever go to a restaurant and they're selling beef short ribs , if their barbecue is any good at all , you owe it to yourself to buy them .

They're going to be expensive but they're going to be 100% worth it .

Now , I hope you guys take the opportunity to get out there and try cooking some of these beef ribs for yourself .

They are 100% worth it .

It might not be an everyday thing .

It might not be an every week thing , but it's definitely least once in your life , you need to try these , these ones from Porter Road .

Amazing .

Great marbling , great flavor .

Just a really rich concentrated beef flavor .

I'm a big fan of them have been for a long time .

Check out the link in the description .

They make phenomenal stuff .

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I'll see you guys next time .