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We quickly realized at Butch that we share a passion - grilling. Nothing unusual among men. Then we quickly got talking about spare ribs and came up with the most amazing spare ribs recipe you can imagine. And we grilled the spare ribs on the coolest grill I've ever used, the Big Green Egg. What fun it was!
But because we're so selfless at Butch, we made a video of it for you and even included a little spare ribs recipe for you to print out. So enjoy our video:
And here's the whole thing explained in writing, of course you can download the recipe for free at the end of the article. So let's get started
Here's what we need:
- A grill, of course. But it has to be a grill with a lid so you can grill indirectly. Extremely important. We recommend a Big Green Egg Grill, of course ;-)
- Charcoal
- Aluminum foil
- Wood chips for smoking flavor (soak in water)
- Spareribs
- Salt
- Pepper
- Sweet & spicy paprika powder
- SECRET TIP 1: Pimenton de la vera (smoked chili peppers with oak wood, mmm)
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Honey
- Soy sauce
- Apple juice
- Brown cane sugar
Step 1: Preparation
Preparation actually only includes two things: lighting the grill and preparing the spare ribs for the grill. First of all, light the grill. It's best to use non-chemical igniters like egg cartons or similar. Of course, it's fun to play around with liquid chemical grill igniters, but you'll taste it afterwards. I've tested everything. So no chemistry at this point, you'll regret it in the end!
If the grill is glowing away, we come to a point that most spare rib recipes don't even have on their radar. If you want to make the leap from solid spare ribs to world-class spare ribs, you have to somehow get rid of the sinewy skin on the bone side, which brings us to SECRET TIP 2.
If you don't know this tip, a huge fight often develops, which the spare ribs often win. This secret tip is quite simple: kitchen paper! Score the spare ribs on the backside at the edge and use a piece of kitchen paper to remove the sinewy silver skin on the bone side, that's it. You've seen exactly how to do it in the video, but here's a photo of it again:
That's it for the preparation.
Step 2: Salt, pepper, and rub the spare ribs
So, the grill is slowly coming up to temperature and the spare ribs need to be seasoned before grilling. First, salt and pepper in the classic way. And then comes the first special feature: Pimenton de la vera! These are chili peppers smoked in oak wood and ground in Spain. Simply mix them with sweet and spicy paprika powder and the rub is ready. And with this rub, you logically rub your spare ribs and that's it for the first round of seasoning.
Step 3: Set Grill Temperature
Before we put the ribs on the grill, we absolutely have to check the temperature. The most important thing when grilling spare ribs is the temperature. It should always be around 120 degrees Celsius, if it's higher, the whole fun will be dry. I have done this several times with a Weber grill, which made it relatively difficult to maintain this level constantly. However, since Big Green Eggs are made of ceramic, they can also be used perfectly as a spaceship on the side. No joke, ceramic grills keep the temperature perfectly at a constant level if you adjust the sliders under the grill and the air supply on the grill lid correctly, like this:
Step 5: Grill the spare ribs
Now it's finally getting serious. The temperature has settled perfectly between 120-150 degrees:
Now we have to throw the soaked smoking chips into the grill..
... and get the Big Green Egg ready for indirect grilling. For this, a so-called ceramic deflector stone is placed over the charcoal. The purpose of this is that the spare ribs do not lie directly over the coals but - due to the oven effect caused by the closed lid - cook slowly and evenly.
Now we can finally put the pre-seasoned and rubbed spare ribs on the grill, preferably in a spare rib holder:
...close the lid and open the first beer ;-)
Step 6: Marinate the spare ribs
A few beers or 2 hours later, we should start making the marinade for our spare ribs. Simply mix soy sauce, mustard, ketchup and honey:
March to the grill and admire how delicious the spare ribs already look after 2 hours:
Next, brush the marinade on, put it back in the Big Green Egg, close the lid and return to the beer fridge!
Step 7: Stew the spare ribs in apple juice and brown sugar
Now comes the part for advanced spare ribs lovers, INSIDER TIP 3 ;-) About an hour after we marinated our spare ribs and put them back in the Big Green Egg grill, they now look like this, yummy:
My "normal" spare ribs recipe would now be finished, hmm quite nice. But we know nice... To top off the spectacle, we decided to grill our spare ribs for another hour. Wrapped in aluminum foil that we lined with brown cane sugar. A good splash of apple juice is added on top:
And another hour on the grill and of course close the lid again now.
Step 8: Eat Spareribs
Persevered! Finally done. After we have now driven our spareribs towards perfection for four hours, we can finally reward ourselves. The meat is buttery tender and falls off the bone, enjoy your meal:
