I mentioned before that I got an electric patio grill for my birthday earlier this month, and based on some reviews on Amazon, I deviated slightly from the assembly instructions that came with it. Specifically, I added a little mass. Reviewers on Amazon mentioned that the grill just doesn’t get up to any real temperature. So, underneath the heating element, I added a round wire rack and a layer of lava rocks designed to be used with a gas grill. The real payoff with this mod is that the more I use the grill, and the more food juices fall and stick to the lava rocks, the more smoke. And smoke is what gives flavor.

I’ve been pretty happy with this, even though it’s just a glorified electric broiler element in an enameled steel encasement. It gets plenty hot — easily climbing to 500° — and it does it pretty quickly. It did blow the electric circuit when I tried plugging it in on one of the more heavily used circuits in my apartment.

It costs about $200 with shipping (though Amazon will ship it for free if you’re willing to wait a couple extra days), and it’s fairly easy to assemble with a screwdriver and a crescent wrench. Although I can’t say if it will last many, many seasons. If it lasts two or three, I’ll be satisfied.

Amazon : Char-Broil Patio Caddie Electric Grill, $159.

I got an electric patio grill for my birthday a few weeks ago, and with a few modifications, it’s able to get really very hot. So now I can grill food, legally, on my high-rise balcony with no worries about setting off the smoke alarm. And tonight I made butterflied BBQ’d chicken and it turned out really well. But if you don’t have an electric grill, it will work fine under the broiler of your oven, and even better if you have access to a gas or charcoal grill (though you’ll probably have to fidget with the cooking times).

You’ll need a chicken, no more than 4 pounds, preferably 3. Cut the back bone out, and cut off the wing tips, and splay it out on the cutting board, legs akimbo, skin side up. Take a kebab skewer and press it into one of the shoulders, and run it diagonally through the breast, and aim the tip to come out the end of the opposite drumstick. Take another skewer and make an X, starting in the other shoulder. This will keep the bird from curling up over the heat. Now you can flavor the chicken with whatever spice combination you want. I chose a mixture of bbq seasoning, salt, garlic powder, and pepper.  I mixed a little of this spice combination with some softened butter and crushed fresh garlic, and inserted it under the skin over the breast and down to the thighs and leg. Then I covered the bird, front and back with the dry seasoning.

Cooking it can’t be easier. Once the thermometer on my grill was up over 425°, I sprayed the grill with a little canola spray, and put the bird, skin-side down, onto the grill and put on the cover, and cooked it that way for 15 minutes. I kept my eye on the thermometer and regulated the heat so it stayed roughly around 400°. Then I turned it over, and cooked it, skin side up, for 25 minutes, rubbing bottled bbq sauce on the chicken in the last 5 minutes. You want the chicken’s internal temperature to be 165° at the thickest part of the thigh. The juices should run clear when you cut into the bird on the platter.

Normally a 3 pound bird would take an hour and a half in my countertop rotisserie. Total cooking time this way, 40 minutes. (I’ve also tried this recipe with two cornish game hens, treated exactly the same… the only difference is the cooking time. You can get by with only 10 minutes on the skin side, and 15-20 minutes on the other.)

He’s right: there’s no need to have coals on both sides of the Weber, a single pile of coals on one side is enough (and don’t use a coal rack or anything like that, just pile them loose. Another tweak (learned from an amazing book called “Mario Tailgates Nascar Style“): after soaking your wood chips for an hour or more (depending on thickness … I sometimes use mesquite chunks I chip myself with a hatchet), put the soaked chips into foil packets and punch holes into the packets before putting the foil packets directly on the coals. Smoke city.

Here are before and after pictures for some beef rib slabs we bbq’d up this weekend.

Whatever you do, the secret is: use patient low temperature for a long time. In many important contexts (cooking ribs is definitely one of ‘em), slower is better.

Temperature Control: how about putting a thermometer on your cooker? Don’t bother with one of them fancy wireless ones, they aren’t very reliable. A simple Teltru BBQ thermometer such as ones you can find at KCK.com is rugged and will do a great job. You can achieve success without a thermometer of course, but using one is an easy way to tell that it’s time to add more coals (and how many) without opening the kettle.

Be careful not to rely too much on your thermometer. The first (and only) time I cooked a whole hog, I was convinced based on a meat thermometer reading that the old boy was done after about 12 or 13 hours. An old hand gave me good advice: throw your meat thermometer away, just take out a knife and cut into the meat to see. Sure enough, he wasn’t done, he needed another 6 hours.

Lesson learned: technology is fine, but nothing beats experience and common sense.

For incredible flavor, great service and a terrific eating experience, it would be hard to beat Lufkin Bar-B-Que in Lufkin Texas, self-proclaimed “Best in Texas.” There you can get a wide variety of BBQ including mouthwatering beef brisket, chipped beef, pork, ham, “hot links” (a kind of homemade sausage with a spicy hot finish), chicken and turkey and a full array of sides including some of the best beans you ever ate. But if you like pork ribs, the ones you get at Lufkin BBQ are to die for. The meat is tender and falls off the bone, the collagen is so soft it has practically dissolved, and the spices are perfect – complementary but sufficiently gentle that you can taste every bite of pork.

In his book “The Great American Barbecue and Grilling Manual”, Smoky Hale inspires us with these encouraging words: “The best barbecue in the world is cooked in somebody’s backyard: not in restaurants, not in contests.” Can this be true? Is it possible to make bbq’ed pork ribs with a flavor and consistency approaching Lufkin BBQ in your own backyard? The answer is “maybe yes” – but only if you’re willing to wake up early in the morning to do it.

Like most “good cooking secrets”, the “secret” behind meat-falling-off-the-bone pork ribs is actually quite simple: long cook time over low heat. If you cook pork ribs over low (e.g., 200 degrees F) sustained heat for a long time, the collagen will soften, the fat will dissolve some and the meat will start falling off the bone. You will end up with some of the best pork ribs you ever made. Will your results approach the perfection of Lufkin BBQ? Unless you live close enough to Lufkin to drive to their takeout window, the answer to that question is not important. What is important is that you, your family and your friends will love the results.

Recipe for Making Meat-Falling-Off-The-Bone Pork Ribs In your Own Backyard
(Inspired by Lufkin BBQ, “The Best in Texas”)

Equipment:

Weber Kettle Grill or equivalent
Charcoal
Soaked wood chips
Charcoal chimney + newspaper
Water pan you can put INTO your kettle grill (8” dutch oven, or throw-away aluminum catering pan)
Clock or timer

Ingredients:

Pork Ribs
Spice Rub
Brown sugar and kosher salt (optional)

PREPARATION (BEST TO START THE NIGHT BEFORE)

THE RIBS: Get yourself some slabs of pork ribs. You can find these vacuum-packed at Walmart, BJ’s or the like.

PREPARE THE RIBS: Take the ribs out of their vacuum pack. Trim off excess fat, wash in running water and dry well with paper towels. Some like to remove the membrane off the back of pork ribs so seasonings can penetrate. The video below will show you how to do this.

DRY RUB: You want to sprinkle some spices all over your ribs. In East Texas, the spices are gentle and unobtrusive so you can always taste the meat. These are of course a TRUE secret – we can only guess. One dry rub that seems to work well is a mix of paprika and cumin with black or white pepper and a little cayenne. You might want to add some garlic powder and/or onion powder. “Rub” is a bit of a misnomer – you don’t need to literally “rub” the meat, you just sprinkle your spices over the entire surface of the meat. After applying the spices, be sure to salt the meat..

BROWN SUGAR/SALT OPTIONAL: East Texans seem to prefer their meat to taste like meat. But if you like your ribs with a sweet finish, you can cover your spice-rubbed ribs with a mixture of brown sugar and kosher salt. The sugar-salt mixture will draw moisture out of the ribs and add to the flavor. If you want to do this, START THE NIGHT BEFORE. Cover the ribs in the sugar-salt mixture and put it in your fridge overnight. By the next morning, your ribs will be coated in a spicy sugar/salt syrup made from all the water drawn out of your ribs.

SOAK YOUR CHIPS. Hickory, mesquite, whatever. Start soaking them the night before.

WAKE UP REAL EARLY. If you plan to serve your ribs at 6 pm, you should start cooking them no later than 7 or 8 am. One or two slabs may cook adequately in 8 hours, but if you load up your weber with 3 or 4 slabs you are looking maybe at 12 hours to do the job right. Better start early to make sure they’re done. If the meat doesn’t fall off the bone, you didn’t cook them long enough.

LIGHT YOUR CHARCOAL. Use a chimney and newspaper, not liquid lighter fluid. Why would anyone want to flavor meat with the taste of liquid lighter fluid? Liquid lighter fluid is bad for the environment and its bad for flavor. It’s a totally useless product we don’t need. How many briquettes? Remember, you’re cooking your ribs over INDIRECT heat. Maybe you’re talking 8 lit coals on each side of your Weber, with a pan of hot water in the center. The grease from the ribs falls into the water, not onto the coals, thereby avoiding grease fires and flames.

HEAT YOUR WATER. Boil some water to put into your center pan. You don’t want your water bath to pull down the temperature of your cooking chamber.

PUT YOUR RIBS ON. Okay, you have 7 or 8 hot coals on the left and 7 or 8 hot coals on the right of your cooking chamber (a few more if you’re cooking more slabs at the same time), and a pan of hot water in the center. Put your prepared slabs of ribs over the hot water. No hot coals should be under any part of your ribs so there will be no grease fires. Put the cover on your kettle and set your timer for 45 minutes or an hour.

PUT ON YOUR CHIPS: Before you close the chamber, put some water-soaked wood chips onto your coals to make some smoke.

STOKE YOUR COALS. Every 45 minutes or hour or so, pull the cover off your weber, add another 5 or 6 coals and add some more water-soaked chips. You’re goal is to maintain a constant smoky temperature of between 200 and 225 degrees F for 8 to 12 hours.

TURN YOUR RIBS: You want all surfaces of your rib slabs to be exposed to the smoky environment within your Weber, so you may need to turn them around every now and again.

WAIT PATIENTLY. You’ll know your ribs are done when the meat starts falling off the bone and the rib slabs start falling apart.

Preheat oven to 325. Mix in a food processor :

6 cloves of garlic
2 california dried chilis, bloomed over an open flame, the stem and seeds removed
2 chunks of peeled fresh ginger
1 T smoked paprika
1 T mixed dried green herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary)
2 t salt
1 t pepper

Score the fat on a boston butt roast, and rub the above mixture all over the roast, especially into the fat.

Slice a white onion, thick, and layer the bottom of a cooking vessel with high sides. Put the roast on top, along with any left over rub. In a small bowl, mix equal amounts of ketchup and yellow mustard, along with half that quantity of molasses. Pour the wet mixture over the pork roast. Cover tightly with a lid, or with a layer of parchment under a layer of foil (tomato and aluminum foil don’t mix). Put it in the oven, and cook for 4 to 8 hours, or until the meat is literally falling off the bone. Once you get close, remove the cover 30 minutes before the end, and let the crust brown.

Remove the roast to rest. Shred with a pair of forks, and serve in the cooking liquid with the onions, and perhaps some good cole slaw, on hamburger buns/kaiser rolls.