My previous post described rib smoking techniques for using a standard vertical smoker. As most people don't have one of these hanging around in their garage I have documented my alternate technique for getting similar results using a standard weber-style kettle charcoal grill.
The meat preparation is the same as the previous method (basic pork rub and remove lower membrane), for the grill setup I fill a full chimney of charcoal and soak the wood chips.
Fill the charcoal into half of the grill and add the pre-soaked wood chips, you will immediately see smoke and steam being produced.
Place a disposable aluminum pan next to the charcoal and fill it with 4 cups of boiling water.
Next, the Ribs go on the grill over the water pan for indirect cooking, bone side down. Tent the ribs with aluminum foil. The foil keeps the smoke close to the meat. Place the lid on the grill with the air vent over the meat to steer the smoke in that direction. Also, open the bottom and lid vents to about half.
So here we are after 3 hours, the heat has died down significantly in the last hour and a half, but this is OK in slow cooking. Next you can move the ribs over the charcoal, apply some barbecue sauce, let it bake on for 5 minutes, flip, repeat a few times. Be sure to watch for flare-ups though, you can easily burn the ribs and sauce if too much fat drips onto the charcoal and starts flames.
In addition to seeing the meat pull off the bone, a good sign that you have a well smoked piece of meat is you will see a smoke ring.
This smoke ring is the outer pink ribbon you see around the edges of the meat from the smoke seeping into the meat.
So there you have it smoked ribs in under 4 hours with a standard charcoal gill.
--Dan
