On our third day day of Low and Slow, we started off the day by lighting the coals and taking out our prepared ribs that had been sitting in the refrigerator overnight. We bent them into spirals, securing them with wooden skewers (to fit all six racks into the relatively small smoker) and put them in to cook. Next we watched a video on different regional styles of barbeque sauce and had our own BBQ sauce contest. In groups, we made sauces by combining different store bought items such as mustard, ketchup, spices, herbs, brown sugar, and various other sauces. We then had Mr. Sussman judge the taste of our sauces, and Chelsea ended up having the best barbecue sauce. After judging, we then combined all of the sauces together (with some additional doctoring by Mr. Sussman) to use for our ribs!
Smoking ribs involved a couple extra steps. After about three hours, we took the ribs off of the smoker to cut them in half, and wrapped them in foil to keep the ribs juicy. Then we put the covered ribs back on the smoker. While we let the ribs smoke, we had a pleasant visit from the preschoolers, and we showed them the smoker and ribs inside. Then it was lunch time, and we enjoyed grilled cheeses provided by Ben and his grill as well as a surprise visit from Mr. Rachlin.
After the delicious lunch, we came back and took the ribs off of the smoker again. This time we unwrapped the ribs and slathered them in our barbecue sauce before putting them back in the smoker for the remainder of the cook. While letting the ribs smoke we spent our time playing spikeball. When the ribs were finally done cooking, we took them off of the smoker and ended the day with some delicious ribs to eat.
Tomorrow, we look forward to trimming and rubbing our pork shoulders, making a North Carolina style sauce, and beginning to prep biscuit ingredients for Thursday. Tomorrow afternoon the pork shoulders will go into the smoker and cook overnight to be ready for Thursday’s feast.