- Hey guys, I'm Chef Tom
with all things barbecue and today, we're smoking beef short ribs. So there's two different
kinds of beef ribs that you might come across
at your butcher shop or your grocery store, and what we're working with
today are beef short ribs. That's not to be confused
with beef back ribs, which are very different. So as you can see here,
all of the meat on these sits on top of these bones. Whereas with the beef back ribs, all of the meat's really in between. Now we have a five bone section
of these beef short ribs and it's been cut in half
right here in the middle which is great because
it's going to afford us the opportunity to prepare these ribs in two different styles today. So much like pork ribs, there's a membrane on the back side of these. We're gonna go ahead and
take that papery membrane off because you can't chew on that, you can't get smoke through it. It's not quite as
important with these ribs because like I said, all of
the meat is sitting up on top. But it will allow us to get
a little extra seasoning, a little extra smoke through
the back side of these. Now I'm also looking for areas like this, where there's a large amount
of fat sitting on the surface. We can go ahead and get
rid of some of that. And we don't need the excessive
fat sitting on the outside because as you can see, there's
tons of fat running through the ribs themselves. Now like I said, we're gonna do these ribs in two different styles today. We're gonna do a dry style rib, we're gonna do a wet style rib. And we'll vary the seasonings
with those as well. Now both styles are
gonna require a slather for us to get the rub
to stick to the ribs. In this case, we're gonna
be using a little bit of this Kansas City hot sauce from Grinders. Now you could use mustard,
you could use olive oil, you know you could use
whatever you want, really. The idea is just to get
enough liquid on the surface to get that rub to really
adhere to the meat. Of course everyone has their preferences when it comes to seasonings,
but generally speaking, when I'm doing beef ribs,
I'm gonna season them similar to how I would season a brisket. We're looking for savory flavors, less sugar and a little more bite. For my dry style rib, I'm gonna be using R Butts R Smokin' R-Beef Rub. This has got some nice salt,
pepper, garlic flavors to it, just a touch of sugar. And of course you can see that paprika. And this is gonna form
a really beautiful crust on our dry style rib. For my wet style rib, I'm gonna be using Plowboys Bovine Bold. Now this is a little more classic barbecue style brisket seasoning. We are gonna end up
hitting our wet ribs with a little bit of sauce in the end and this is going to
compliment that really well. Now we can see that there's
some moisture pockets forming on the surface of the ribs, so we know our rub is tacked up, and it's time to put these on the smoker. I've got the Yoder Smoker's
YS640 pellet grill, it's rolling at 250 degrees, the hopper's full of
pecan and cherry pellets. Let's throw these on the rack. Now I'll throw my dry
ribs back here in the back because I'm not gonna touch those for this entire cook, really. Put our wet ones right
up here in the front so we can wrap these later. Our beef ribs have been
on for four hours now, and we're about ready
to wrap our wet ribs. You see we're getting some
really nice color on here. This is the one we're gonna
leave open the whole time. So we'll let that one keep on riding. And let's pick this guy
up and wrap it in foil. Now if you wanted to add
any additional flavorings at this point you could do that, you could put some beef stock
in there to braise with it, some hot sauce, some steak sauce, but I think I'm just gonna
let it ride just like it is. We're just gonna wrap this nice and tight, so that it can continue to sort of break itself down in there, and it'll braise in its own juices. Gonna wrap this as tight as I can, without puncturing the sides. And we'll get it back on the grill. So we've still got some pretty
solid resistance on this, if we do take a temperature reading, 170, 175 probably. We're not going to be cooking
to a specific temperature today, what we're really
looking for is tenderness just like we would do with a brisket, but it will be over 200
degrees when we finish. Well we're right at five
hours into this cook, and our wet ribs are
feeling nice and tender. Wrapping those in foil really expedites that cooking process, so, we're gonna pull the wet ones out, let the dry ones finish on there and we'll rest those wet ribs
before we slice into them. So you can see we've got some
juice in the bottom here, that's all just rendered out of the meat as it's cooked and it
continues to baste itself in that juice and in that
fat that renders out. Super tender, coming
away from the bones now. And those are done so we'll just loosely wrap
them up and let them rest. Alright, so after about six hours total, our dry ribs, just feeling like
butter when you probe them. I mean super tender. And these guys are done
so let's set these aside, and let's check out the wet ribs. Nice. So one thing we wanna do now is just get little bit of sauce brushed onto the top of this guy, and then we'll give it a taste. Alright, I'm just gonna soak up a little of this extra fat. There's plenty of it running through so I don't think we need
to leave that there. While this is warm, I'm
just gonna add a little bit of our sauce to the top to let that kind of melt into the meat. And we're using this
Plowboys KC Crossroads, really great beef barbecue sauce. Not too sweet, and we'll just brush this evenly, we want a thin layer,
we don't wanna overdo it with too much sauce. Super tender, just going
right through there. Let's check this out. Wow. You gotta love the way that that fat runs through the beef ribs and
just bastes it while it cooks. So much juice in there. Let's have a taste and see how we did. Wow. It's almost falling apart, it's so tender but you can see that you actually do get a definitive bite there. So this isn't overcooked. Now I'm not a huge sauce fan
when it comes to beef stuff, but if you're gonna use
one, this is the one to use because it's perfect
for this flavor profile. So if you've got sauce
fans in your family, this is the way to go. Alright, now we've given our
dry ribs some time to rest, so let's slice into these guys. Alright so you can see
that layer of fat in there and this just, man it makes it so juicy. Even when it's not wrapped, you still retain so much juice in there. The outside is a little bit crustier than that wet rib. The outside has such fantastic flavor, that crispy crust is just really good, it's super juicy, super moist. No one's gonna be mad about that. You know we hit these two
different methods today, and both of them are really fantastic. For me, I'm a dry ribs guy. I love that spice, that crust. But, it's totally worth checking out both of those methods. You've gotta find out for yourself which one you love. You've gotta do this both ways. Let us know what you think, and which one is your favorite. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed the video please click the subscribe button. If you have any questions, or comments, or if there's anything else
you'd like to see me cook, let me know in the comments
section down below. For more recipes, tips, and techniques head over to thesauce.atbbq.com. All Things Barbecue, where
barbecue legends are made.
