Beef Back Ribs

The "secret" to making great beef back ribs is starting with good ribs and preparing the meat properly before seasoning. Most supermarket ribs have most of the meat cut out (see Figures 1 and 1a) and are not worth cooking. Sometimes supermarket have "Fresh Beef Ribs" (see Figure 2), these are usually the ones cut off when making boneless rib roasts. Good beef ribs often come as partial racks and sometimes as individual ribs, the worthless ribs virtually always come a full racks.

Once you have good beef ribs, you need to prepared them properly:

• Wash the ribs thoroughly with cold water.
• Remove the membrane and any associated fat from the inside (back) of the ribs (see Figure 3).
• If the ribs ar part of a rack, you will need to cut between them to seperate them into indivigual ribs.
• Next you need to remove the loose bone at the top of the rib (see Figure 4). My wife calls this the tooth breaker bone. Save the piece you cut off to use in stews or to pan fry with onions.

Season the ribs by either:

• Marinating the ribs overnight in:
  • my signiture version of BBQ sauce,
  • hot or mild BBQ sauce,
  • Marinade for Beef, or
  • Teriyaki Marinade,
• Sprinkling the ribs with garlic powder and fresh ground pepper (salt will be added when the ribs are on the grill).

Now that the ribs are ready to cook:

• Put the ribs over a hot charcoal fire, sprinkle with coarse salt, turn and sprinkle the other side with coarse salt. Never salt the ribs ahead of time. Given time, the salt will draw moisture out of the meat and make the meat tough.
• Use tongs to turn the ribs, never use a fork. Forks poke holes into the meat and let the juices leak out. This makes for dry ribs.
• Let the rib cook a few minutes on one side, turn and cook on the other side. Then turn the rib on its edge on cook first in one edge, then the other. Exact cooking time depends on how hot you fire is and how well done you like your ribs.
• Serve hot and bask in the admiration of your family or guests who may have never had a rib that tastes this good.

If you are serving beef ribs as the main dish, you will need about four ribs per person.