Ribs which side down

Step 4: Set aside 1 tablespoon of rub for serving. Sprinkle the remaining rub over both sides of the ribs, rubbing it onto the meat. Cover the ribs with plastic wrap and refrigerate them while you set up the grill. Place a large drip pan in the center of the grill. Step 6: When ready to cook, brush and oil the grill grate. Place the ribs, bone side down, in the center of the grate over the drip pan and away from the heat.

If your grill has limited space, stand the racks of ribs upright in a rib rack. If cooking on a charcoal grill, toss half of the wood chips on each mound of coals. This could throw off the timing of your barbecue. Before you begin, you should understand that not all pork ribs are the same. There are several different types, each with their own set of distinguishing characteristics.

Spare ribs are cut from the underside of the hog—the belly, in other words. In fact, bacon is cut from the same section. That should give you some idea of how spare ribs might taste.

This gives them a uniform rectangular shape, so they cook more evenly. As you might have guessed from the name, baby back ribs are smaller than spare ribs. At first glance, a novice barbecue enthusiast might be excused for thinking that baby back ribs should be cooked with their meaty side facing down.

The grill's heat comes from below, after all, and it seems intuitive to place the meaty section where it's exposed to the heat. In truth, because ribs are relatively tough and gristly, they require long, slow cooking in indirect heat. The bony concave side of the ribs should always face down, so the thin meaty layer won't overcook during this lengthy process.

Season the ribs ahead of time with your favorite dry rub or spice paste, and let them rest for 1 to 24 hours before you begin cooking. The ribs need indirect heat, so after your coals are well established rake them all to one side of your kettle. Use a slow cooker or pressure cooker for this. Fire up the grill! You want to cook the ribs over indirect heat with a lid, so move your coals to either side when they are ready and put a drip tray in between.

Lay the ribs bone side down over the drip tray. You want low temperatures and an indirect cooking method here, unlike burgers and steaks. Close the lid and cook gently for about 3 hours. If you have precooked your ribs, you can reduce this time to an hour or less. Please do not use the sauce at this point. Almost every sauce contains sugar in some form, whether sugar, honey, or maple syrup.

Sugar burns very easily, so we will only baste it at the end of the cooking process. We suggest basting it onto the ribs in the last 10 minutes. The sauce will caramelize at this time but not burn. The meat will shrink back, exposing about 5 mm of bone at the thin end of the ribs.

When you lift the rack with your tongs, it will bend in the middle. We find that we get the best results when oven-cooking ribs if we lay the meat side down. This allows the fat on the bone side to drip down.