Dustin Cornelius' BBQ for Grillers Site

Ah brines, probably the best friend of most great grills, BBQer’s, and picklers.  A brine is a solution that can be used to permeate meat, poultry, fish, or veggies to either add flavor or preserve food.  Some brines can be as simple as water, vinegar, sugar, and salt (Chicken comes to mind for this brine.).  One of the brines I like to use on pork and beef is as follows:

• 4 Tbs Liquid Smoke
• 6 Tbs Worcestershire (Makes meat meatier!)
• 4 Tbs Soy Sauce
• 2 Tbs of Mustard (Brown)
• 4 Tbs Hot sauce (If you don’t like spicy then cut back to 1 or 2 Tbs. If its still a bit much for you then skip the BBQ and stick to bread.)
• 1 Cup of Water
• 1 Cup of Vinegar

The amount of brine above is for 2 to 3 racks of pork ribs.  Submerge the ribs in the brine for 3 to 5 hours or longer.  I find it a little therapeutic to invent new brines (Is that weird?), so if you don’t like my version make your own.  The thing to remember is that flavors like worcestershire go well with beef and pork. For chicken oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, and garlic work great (Think Italian dressing.) so find what works for your taste and have fun.

Have fun and be blessed.

Dustin

I was thinking about my first BBQ post and it hit me that most people grill rather than smoke their meats.  So, I thought I would discuss a few slow grill methods over the next few blog entries that I have found that work well for those times when you only have a grill.

Ribs

When cooking ribs on the grill whether baby backs or spare, slow is the best method.  I have found that if you cut your ribs into 3 to 4 bone sections and cook the meat over medium high (450 degrees) heat for about five minutes on each this will sear the meat on the outside.  Then move the ribs to indirect heat (300 – 325 degrees) checking and flipping the ribs every 15 minutes for about 3 hours or until the ribs internal temp reaches around 160 degrees.  (Side track moment) The way you can achieve indirect heat on a charcoal grill is to build your coals on one side of the grill allowing the meat to sit on the side without the fire.  The same method is used with a gas grill when achieving indirect heat, the grill will need two or more burners.  I’m not a purist when using a grill so use what you have, either will work although the gas grill will give you more control over the temp.

Back to the ribs!

When the ribs have achieve the correct temp, crank the heat or move the ribs to the direct heat and apply the BBQ sauce of your choice mopping and flipping the ribs every minute or so until the right caramelization is achieved.  The caramelization comes from heating to the point of burning the BBQ sauce on to the ribs.  Some of you may say what about the great smoke flavor?  My answer is brines, and I will cover brines in a later posting.

In future postings I will talk about rubs, brines, and smoking!

Have fun and be blessed!

Dustin