Baby Back Ribs

Ingredients

Brine and Ribs

2 cups warm water

2 cups lager beer

½ cup (packed) golden brown sugar

4 tablespoons kosher salt

2 jumbo size (2 ½ gallon) resealable plastic bag – or large bowl or small cooler

2 racks baby back pork ribs (about four lbse)

First Rub/Slather

¼ cup (packed) golden brown sugar

1 cup yellow mustard (cheap stuff)

Second (Dry) Rub

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon black pepper

Favorite Barbecue Sauce.

Spray bottle full of AVC (apple cider vinegar)

Cooking Instructions

For Brine: Stir all ingredients in bowl until sugar and salt dissolve. Add some ice to be sure the warm water becomes cold. Pour brine into plastic bag. Add ribs. Seal bag and chill overnight, turning occasionally.

For First Rub/Slather: Mix sugar and yellow mustard to make a paste. Remove ribs from brine; pat dry. First, remove membrane from back of the ribs, pick at the membrane from one end to get it started using a bread knife, then grab with paper towel to remove. Do so from both racks. Slather the mixture all over the ribs. Let sit for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Heat smoker or oven up to 250. Set a water pan between in smoker or oven.

Once 30 minutes have passed, combine all the seasonings in the dry rub and pour into a shaker, if you don’t have one, use your hand, but be sure to coat evenly, let rub set in for 15 minutes.

Add ribs to smoker, or oven, meat side up. Spray with ACV every hour for the first 4 hours. Be sure to flip and spray both sides. After 4 hours wrap in pink butcher paper or foil. Let cook another 2 hours.

Pull ribs from smoker, let sit in cooler for 1 hour to rest. If you did them in the oven, let sit for 30 minutes or so, then put some BBQ sauce on them and grill them on low on each side on grill to get some color on them. If you used smoker, I usually warm up the BBQ sauce on the side and if people want to use it, have at it. They usually don’t need sauce! Up to you.