4 Levels of BBQ Ribs: Amateur to Food Scientist

[sauce squeaking]

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Hi, I am Clark, and I'm a level one chef.

Hi, I'm Daniel, and I'm a level two chef.

Hey, guys, chef Brittany here.

I've been a professional chef for about 10 years now.

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The best rib to me is really juicy, it's super tender,

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has a little bit of spice.

You know, anyone can do hamburgers and cheeseburgers,

but ribs, kind of sort of a flex.

It can go on the grill, it can go in the oven,

it can be smoked,

there's such a versatile and adaptable ingredient.

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So today I'm making St. Louis style ribs.

[upbeat music] I can't tell you much more about 'em

except when I was younger,

this is what we would always use,

and that's what I'm gonna use today.

Today I'm working with baby back ribs.

I like 'em a little more than spare ribs

'cause they're a little smaller, you know, they're cute.

Here we have two slabs of Iberico pork ribs.

Iberico ribs come from Spain, they feed their pigs acorns.

So as you can see here,

we do have a lot of fatty deposits from that acorn feed.

So I'm gonna go ahead

and trim off just a little bit of them.

So first things first

is taking the membrane off of the back of the ribs.

Apparently it stops the ribs

when you're cooking them from like curling in.

So it helps the whole thing bake evenly

and makes them incredibly moist, it is done.

First I'm gonna start with my rub.

I am adding store-bought dry rub together with chili powder.

I like a bit of spice.

So this is my homemade rub.

I think there's like five or six different ingredients.

Got a little bit of black pepper,

some garlic powder, light brown sugar.

I am a Jamaican chef and we jerk everything.

So I'm gonna be making my own jerk spice blend here.

And we have a little bit of parsley,

some smoked paprika. Smoked paprika.

And then my seasoned salt.

It's basically salt

with a ton of extra like spices and herbs inside.

So there's salt, sugar,

paprika, celery seed, turmeric, onion, corn starch,

garlic, dicalcium phosphate,

and a little bit of natural flavor.

A touch of nutmeg, ginger powder, mustard powder,

cinnamon, granulated garlic, onion,

dried thyme, habanero powder.

Some of your guests may not really quite like that heat,

so just be a little careful.

And of course, it would not be a jerk spice without pimento,

also known as allspice.

I'm just getting all these ingredients together.

[Brittany] A little stir.

And bam, dry rub is done.

Now I'm going to actually prep the meat.

So I'm adding some classic yellow mustard.

I'm gonna start with a little bit of vegetable oil

so that the spice blend could really adhere to the pork.

[Clark] Got a little bit of vinegar in it too,

which makes it nice and tangy.

Liberally adds some salt

throughout some of that moisture.

Mustard looks good on this side,

and now I'm gonna go in with the rub.

I like it Picasso.

[Daniel] Liberally sprinkle

and coat this entire rack of ribs.

[Brittany] Get every crevice.

[Daniel] On the front, back sides,

everything gets coated in the dry rub.

Cute, my ribs are seasoned.

I'm gonna let these sit just

so that they can marinate for a little bit.

And it's time to go make my barbecue sauce.

So my barbecue sauce is really simple, just two ingredients.

I'm starting with the Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue.

This is what I always used growing up.

Okay, this is disgusting. [laughing]

Now I'm gonna add the hot sauce.

I think Texas Pete is the way to go.

It's just eyeballing it.

I don't even think you need to home make barbecue sauce

because this is delicious.

If you wanna buy barbecue sauce from the store,

go ahead and do it.

I think making your own is so cool.

It's like it's got your love,

your love is in the barbecue sauce.

So we're making a jerk rum barbecue sauce.

It reinforces the flavors

that's already rubbed on our ribs now,

it just kind of like brings it to a new level.

Where do you even begin to make barbecue sauce?

Like, what is the first step?

Is it like a tomato base maybe?

So starting off with tomato puree.

Gonna start with our base, ketchup.

Gonna add some ketchup.

[Brittany] Gonna give that nice, sweet tang.

We've got some red wine vinegar.

It's gonna add a little acidity, a little punch.

[Brittany] Followed by our molasses,

that will give a deep, rich sweetness.

So along with the molasses,

I'm gonna add some light brown sugar.

[Brittany] Brown sugar.

And if I'm adding sugar, I've gotta add some salt as well.

I've got some liquid smoke, this stuff is so dope,

gives you that cooked over a fire feeling.

Black pepper, chili powder,

a little bit of cayenne to add a little bit of a heat,

some more smoked paprika, onion powder.

And this is just for me.

I add cinnamon to like everything, it's like my signature.

Gonna go ahead and add the dry jerk rub,

and I have created my own wet jerk sauce.

You can see the little speckles of the allspice,

the scotch bonnet, I see some thyme in here.

I love jerk sauce, jerk anything, like.

Ooh, I don't know if I've ever had jerk barbecue sauce.

And of course, rum,

[bottle cap popping]

you have all these jerk spices,

dark spiced rum really starts to fortify those flavors.

We're gonna wanna bring this to a high temp

to a point where you start to see little bubbles

start to form.

Cook off that excess alcohol from the rum.

You don't wanna get drunk off the barbecue sauce.

Cook this down a bit.

Let it reduce till it gets nice and thick.

All right, it's been going for like 10, 15 minutes.

This sauce is looking so good.

Color has gotten a little darker.

It's gotten a little thicker.

Mm, it's sweet, it's spicy,

just adding a touch of more salt.

We wanna balance these flavors

And that's it, that is homemade barbecue sauce.

So time to cook the meat.

And there's like a two-step cooking process here.

I'm gonna add some water in first,

supposed to keep it moist inside.

My parents told me to do this, so,

I'm gonna be real, that's why I'm doing it.

But I think it works.

Rib's looking great,

already started to soak up the flavor.

Just gonna wrap in some tinfoil.

[Clark] And pack it nice and tight.

I'm going to transfer them

into our vacuum seal bags, vacuum seal them.

It really fortifies that flavor.

This is a three-part cooking process.

Start with the sous vide to like really tenderize the meat.

Essentially sous viding is giving

whatever you have in vacuum sealed bags a little jacuzzi,

to like cook things through,

but not really get that Maillard reaction that you would

if you're pan-searing or grilling.

Have my oven preheated to 350,

I'm just gonna throw this in there for about 90 minutes.

300 degrees for like two to three hours

until they're nice and tender.

Let this go for 24 hours at 155 degrees Fahrenheit,

also known as 68.3 degrees Celsius.

All right. Okay, back from the oven.

These smell delicious, so I'm gonna uncover these.

[Brittany] Wow. I'm happy.

[Daniel] That looks great.

Bones are kind of peeking out a little bit,

You see, already falling off the bone, oh!

So for the second part of our preparation

of these Iberico ribs is smoking.

Here I have wrapped them in saran wraps

so that we can lock in this smoke.

We have this beautiful smoke gun.

Smoke gun, I don't know, are we Batman?

It would not be considered jerk

if it is not smoked over pimento wood.

So here I'm just gonna add the wood chips to our smoke gun

and light this flame. [lighter ticking]

I mean, honestly,

I would just sage my entire house with this.

It smells so good.

It's been about 20, 30 seconds.

I just got a nice waft of the aroma of the pimento

so I know that these ribs definitely have that smokiness

that we're looking for.

So step two here is gonna be the barbecue sauce.

I'm gonna pour this all over the ribs.

[Daniel] Kind of slather it.

[Brittany] Beautiful, glistening.

Oh, I would eat this for breakfast.

Now, I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit of light brown sugar

on the top of this as well.

Having a little bit of that sweet crunch on the outside

really sends it home with that phenomenal flavor.

Now I'm taking this back to the oven,

cooking it uncovered, 30 minutes, lower temperature.

Throw these into the broiler at 375

for like three, four minutes.

Gonna go ahead and pop them in a 450 degree oven

till this glaze is beautifully caramelized.

Ooh, these. Yo!

[Daniel] Look banging.

I think it looks exactly like the ribs from my childhood.

I can't wait to cut into them, but not right now.

I'm gonna let 'em sit for like five, 10 minutes.

If you cut into it immediately,

it's like all the moisture just kind of leaves, you know?

I feel like that's like a best rule of practice for meat.

These already look amazing, but I'm not quite done yet.

So these are some pistachios

that I've gone ahead and roasted

and spiced up with the dried jerk rub,

bringing a little bit of nuttiness

and a crunch factor to our ribs.

All right, time to plate this up.

What I like to do is try and find the bone on the underside

so I know exactly where to cut.

[Clark] Oh, that might be a bone.

Oh, nice, right on the bone, like, like a moron.

Oof, I mean, guys,

this is like the most perfect cut rib.

[Clark] Oh, there we go.

[Daniel] Mm, hi, all these guys on here.

Now to add a touch more pistachio

because we really wanna impart that flavor,

and to add a touch of sea salt,

balance out the sweetness of the barbecue sauce.

And these are my spicy St. Louis style ribs.

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And these are my baby back ribs.

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Here is my jerk rum barbecue glazed Iberico ribs.

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I am really excited to try these, they look really good.

I'm a big sauce person, and they're definitely saucy.

The meat is tender.

You got a nice layer of thick sauce

that's caramelized on there.

I'm actually salivating right now.

I don't know, I feel like I keep having to go like, Sss.

I'm ready to taste these ribs

that took over 24 hours to make.

Oh man. Oh my god.

It's just so good.

These are those smacky mama ribs, you know what I mean?

Definitely messy, lots of Sweet Baby Ray's.

Then the meat is actually really nice and tender.

This just feels like you're at a family cookout,

call me unc.

It's like perfectly tender, slides right off the bone.

There's nothing left on there, you see that?

The sauce is like a perfect add-on on the top,

these are killer.

Shout out to the sweet molasses glaze

that we have going on here,

texture from the pistachios that bring a touch of heat.

And do you wanna talk about like the cook on these ribs?

It melts in your mouth,

and that's from the sous vide process.

I'm done talking now.

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Barbecued ribs are a summer staple

but delicious any time of the year.

Let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs.

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Clark made St. Louis' style pork ribs,

these are rectangular sections of the ribs

around the belly of hogs.

They're flat because the sternum and cartilage are removed,

and most of the meat is found on one side of the bone.

This is perfect.

Daniel used baby back ribs

from along the backbone beneath the loin.

Baby back, baby back, baby back.

They're called baby

because they're shorter than the other ribs

and curved because of how they're connected to the backbone.

Meat surrounds the bone, and they're naturally tender.

This is because this cut of meat isn't used for locomotion

or other high activity movement.

Brittany used Iberico pork ribs.

This meat is from a special heritage black hog

native to Spain and Portugal.

The taste is slightly sweet and flavorful

and the color is somewhat redder

than commercially raised hog ribs

because they are free to roam in open areas.

Locomotion requires more oxygen to move muscle,

and the oxygen is carried by myoglobin,

a red pigment found in animals.

Iberico hogs forage for acorns,

which is what they eat and survive on most the time.

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Clark roasted her ribs in an oven at medium temperature

for 90 minutes,

after wrapping them in tinfoil with some water.

The steam energy cooks the ribs conductively

by imparting energy to the ribs

as the steam contacts the surface of the meat.

For his homemade barbecue sauce,

Daniel included liquid smoke,

this is made from destructive distillation of wood.

Destructive distillation is another term for pyrolysis,

or burning without oxygen.

If oxygen is present, it's called combustion.

It added a smokey quality without actually smoking the meat.

Brittany used the sous vide method to cook her ribs.

This required her to vacuum seal her seasoned ribs

in a plastic bag and submerge it in a water bath

at a constant temperature for many hours.

With this method,

the meat never exceeds the temperature of the water,

so it's a slow and gentle heating process.

Collagen is a connective tissue

that structurally is three proteins twisted together

to give it tensile strength.

At this temperature, the collagen slowly unravels

and combines with water in the meat

to form a soft, soluble gelatin,

which makes the meat very tender.

I don't need a moist towelette

because this is lick-your-fingers good.

Barbecue ribs are so versatile and always delicious.

We hope you'll take some of these tips

from our three amazing chefs.

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