GrillinFool
Full Fledged Farker
- Joined
- May 8, 2009
- Location
- St. Louis
This is one of those recipes that came to me organically by simply seeing an ingredient and wanting to come up with a way to use it. In this case, my lovely wife has been making coffee the night before to make iced coffee in the morning. She’d left about eight ounces in the fridge and I had bought some ribs but wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. In a matter of moments, I texted her to let her know that I would make her more coffee as I used the last to brine ribs. She of course replied with the rolleyes as I’m always trying weird ingredients for the grill. The results were outstanding.
Ingredients:
1 slab baby back ribs, skinned and cut in half
8 oz coffee
20 turns of fresh black pepper
1/4 cup salt
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp granulated garlic
1/2 tbsp granulated onion
1/2 tbsp smoked, Spanish paprika
If you are familiar with brining, the general ratio is 1 cup of salt per gallon of fluid. But here it looks like I’ve doubled up the salt. I have because I only had about three hours to brine. If I could’ve brined overnight, I would’ve used 1/8 cup salt with 1 cup of coffee. But I wanted to accelerate the process.
Directions:
After skinning the ribs and cutting them in half, combine the the top four ingredients in a plastic bag, making sure that the salt is dissolved by sloshing the sealed bag around. Refrigerate for 2-12 hours (if longer than 4 hours, cut the salt in half)
Here are the ribs after three hours in the brine in the fridge:
In the Coffee Brine
Now combine the rest of the ingredients to make a rub.
Remove the ribs from the brine, but do not rinse them. I normally do when I brine, but I want that coffee film to provide a flavor glue for the rub. Always rub the bone side first:
Bone Side Rubbed
Then rub the meat side (bone side down):
Meat Side Rubbed
The reason to always rub the bone side first, is the natural concave of the bones keeps the rub elevated off the cutting board and thus it won’t stick to the board:
See the Curve of the Bone
Now, this was the second cook in which I used my newest toy, the PitmasterIQ:
PitmasterIQ
It’s an ingenious little device. Essentially, it’s an air blower attached to a hose and a thermometer:
The Control Unit and the Hose connected to the Bottom of the Grill
The thermometer run through the upper vent the first time I used the PitmasterIQ
When the temp drops below the temp you set the device to, the fan blows onto the fire keeping the temps constant. They can be attached to just about any grill and make that grill a set-it-and-forget it smoker. The unit runs $140 and makes smoking incredibly easy and low maintenance. Click here to purchase one.
Now back to the recipe.
The basic process is to get the grill to between 275-325 and cook the baby backs and smoke them for 2 hours. They will not be fall off the bone. If you prefer that, smoke them for 90 minutes, then put them in foil with a little liquid and cook for another 45 minutes and then back over the heat for 15 minutes.
I used plum wood for this smoke.
Here are the ribs about an hour and 15 minutes into the process:
Ribs at 75 minutes in
The ribs below the slab on top I jerked.
I’ve got some nice pull back on the bones starting to happen on the coffee brined ribs:
Meat Pulling Back
At a little over 2 hours (I was playing with the settings on the PitmasterIQ so it was a little longer than normal) the ribs looked like this.
Ribs at a little over 2 hours
As you can tell, the sun had set by the time I took these pics.
Here’s some better pull back:
Better Pull Back
The two things to look for when determining if ribs are done are the bones pulling back and the flex of the slab, or in this case half slab. A raw slab can be bent in half, but as the meat cooks and the fat renders out, the slab firms up. You don’t want it to have no flex (that’s overdone), but pay attention to how much they bend and how much the meat pulls back from the bones. Those two factors will tell you when the ribs are done.
And here they are sliced:
Sliced
The coffee really adds something to the flavor. It seems like a perfect compliment with its natural savory/sweet profile. That along with the savory/sweet rub and these ribs were fantastic. I can’t wait to do them again and brining overnight. A coffee brine might be something I add to all sorts of rib recipes, no matter the rub. I bet it would’ve been great with the jerk ribs. Think of it. A total Jamaican theme – coffee and jerk. Guess what my next slab of ribs will be?
For other pork recipes, click here.
Also, you can follow the Grillin Fools on Facebook and post your own grillin pictures or on Twitter @GrillinFool.
Ingredients:
1 slab baby back ribs, skinned and cut in half
8 oz coffee
20 turns of fresh black pepper
1/4 cup salt
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp granulated garlic
1/2 tbsp granulated onion
1/2 tbsp smoked, Spanish paprika
If you are familiar with brining, the general ratio is 1 cup of salt per gallon of fluid. But here it looks like I’ve doubled up the salt. I have because I only had about three hours to brine. If I could’ve brined overnight, I would’ve used 1/8 cup salt with 1 cup of coffee. But I wanted to accelerate the process.
Directions:
After skinning the ribs and cutting them in half, combine the the top four ingredients in a plastic bag, making sure that the salt is dissolved by sloshing the sealed bag around. Refrigerate for 2-12 hours (if longer than 4 hours, cut the salt in half)
Here are the ribs after three hours in the brine in the fridge:
Now combine the rest of the ingredients to make a rub.
Remove the ribs from the brine, but do not rinse them. I normally do when I brine, but I want that coffee film to provide a flavor glue for the rub. Always rub the bone side first:
Then rub the meat side (bone side down):
The reason to always rub the bone side first, is the natural concave of the bones keeps the rub elevated off the cutting board and thus it won’t stick to the board:
Now, this was the second cook in which I used my newest toy, the PitmasterIQ:
It’s an ingenious little device. Essentially, it’s an air blower attached to a hose and a thermometer:
When the temp drops below the temp you set the device to, the fan blows onto the fire keeping the temps constant. They can be attached to just about any grill and make that grill a set-it-and-forget it smoker. The unit runs $140 and makes smoking incredibly easy and low maintenance. Click here to purchase one.
Now back to the recipe.
The basic process is to get the grill to between 275-325 and cook the baby backs and smoke them for 2 hours. They will not be fall off the bone. If you prefer that, smoke them for 90 minutes, then put them in foil with a little liquid and cook for another 45 minutes and then back over the heat for 15 minutes.
I used plum wood for this smoke.
Here are the ribs about an hour and 15 minutes into the process:
The ribs below the slab on top I jerked.
I’ve got some nice pull back on the bones starting to happen on the coffee brined ribs:
At a little over 2 hours (I was playing with the settings on the PitmasterIQ so it was a little longer than normal) the ribs looked like this.
As you can tell, the sun had set by the time I took these pics.
Here’s some better pull back:
The two things to look for when determining if ribs are done are the bones pulling back and the flex of the slab, or in this case half slab. A raw slab can be bent in half, but as the meat cooks and the fat renders out, the slab firms up. You don’t want it to have no flex (that’s overdone), but pay attention to how much they bend and how much the meat pulls back from the bones. Those two factors will tell you when the ribs are done.
And here they are sliced:
The coffee really adds something to the flavor. It seems like a perfect compliment with its natural savory/sweet profile. That along with the savory/sweet rub and these ribs were fantastic. I can’t wait to do them again and brining overnight. A coffee brine might be something I add to all sorts of rib recipes, no matter the rub. I bet it would’ve been great with the jerk ribs. Think of it. A total Jamaican theme – coffee and jerk. Guess what my next slab of ribs will be?
For other pork recipes, click here.
Also, you can follow the Grillin Fools on Facebook and post your own grillin pictures or on Twitter @GrillinFool.
