Celebrity chef and award-winning barbecue champ Myron Mixon, of Myron Mixon’s Pitmaster Barbeque in Dunn Loring, shares his recipes for Championship St. Louis Ribs, rib marinade, meat rub, rib spritz, and pork glaze.
Championship St. Louis Ribs
Serves 8 to 12
I recommend cooking four racks of ribs, which should be enough to serve 8 hungry rib lovers or 12 rib pickers who’ll be eating a lot of side dishes alongside the ribs. If you’re going to cook fewer ribs, you’ll still need to make the rub, marinade, and glaze, so my thought is: Make more ribs than you need. You can save those leftovers and thank me later. Note that regardless of how many racks of ribs you’re cooking, the cook time stays the same.
Tools
- 2 solid cutting boards
- 1 sharp boning knife or paring knife
- Myron Mixon Rib Skinner or clean kitchen towels
- 3 to 4 aluminum baking pans
- Aluminum foil
- 1 medium-size plastic spray bottle
- 1 brush to apply glaze
Ingredients
- 4 racks spareribs
- Rib Marinade (see recipe)
- 3 cups Jack’s Old South Original Rub or make your own (see recipe)
- Rib Spritz (see recipe)
- 1 cup apple juice
- Pork Glaze (see recipe)
Instructions
One at a time, place the slabs of spareribs on the cutting board, bone-side down. Trim off the excess fat, especially around the first three ribs. Turn the slab over so it’s bone side up. There’s a clear thick membrane covering and connecting the bones (called “the silver,” which butchers and even some grocery stores might remove for you), and you’ll need to remove this because it prevents rubs and sauces from adhering to the rib meat, and you want those flavors on your ribs. Use your sharp knife to slide it under the silver. Once you have penetrated the silver with a knife, work your fingers underneath it until you have 2 to 3 inches cleared. Use your Myron Mixon Rib Skinner (or a clean kitchen towel) to grab the membrane and then gently yet firmly pull the membrane all the way off the rack of ribs. Discard the membrane. Pulling off the membrane will expose loose fat on the ribs that you can trim off with your paring knife. Repeat this process with all the racks.
Now that you’ve prepped your racks, you need to do the St. Louis cut — this ensures that the ribs will be as uniform in size as they can be, which is important for your cook time and doneness. Pick the longest bone near the breastbone and use it as a guideline of where to make the horizontal cut along the length of the slab, so you can separate the ribs from the breastbone. Cut all the way across the rack to separate the smaller curved ribs from the long ones. You should end up with two slabs of ribs that are 5 to 6 inches in length. Reserve the shorter part to make riblets — refrigerate them in an aluminum pan until ready to cook.
After the ribs are properly trimmed, set the racks in a deep aluminum baking pan. Cover the ribs with the rib marinade. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and let it sit for 4 hours, either in the refrigerator or in a cooler packed with ice.
When you are ready to smoke the ribs, remove them from the marinade. Pat the ribs dry with clean kitchen towels or paper towels. Apply the rub to the ribs lightly, around the edges of the ribs and over the backside of them, and on top. Then let the ribs sit, uncovered, at room temperature for 30 minutes.
In the meantime, heat your smoker to 275 degrees. Transfer the ribs to a clean aluminum baking pan. When the smoker is ready, put the pan of ribs in the smoker. Close the smoker and smoke the ribs for 3 hours. After the first 45 minutes, open the smoker and spritz the ribs all over with the rib spritz. Close the smoker and continue to spritz the ribs in this manner in 15-minute intervals, until the 3 hours is up.
Remove the rib pan from the smoker. Pour the apple juice into a clean aluminum baking pan. Place the ribs in the pan, bone side down, and cover the pan with aluminum foil. Place the pan in the smoker and smoke for 2 hours.
Remove the pan from the smoker and shut off the heat in the smoker. Remove the foil from the pan and apply the pork glaze to the tops and bottoms of the racks of ribs. Cover the pan with the foil again, return it to the smoker, and let the ribs rest in the smoker for 1 hour as the temperature in the smoker gradually drops.
After an hour resting in the smoker, remove the pan from the smoker and transfer the rib racks to a clean cutting board. Let the ribs rest for 10 minutes, then cut them to separate them and serve immediately.
RIB MARINADE
Makes 1 quart
Don’t listen to folks who say ribs don’t need marinating. It’s OK to listen to folks who do a dry marinade on ribs with a rub — people have a lot of success with that method — but I prefer to soak my ribs overnight in this wet marinade before I apply rub to them.
Ingredients
- 0.5 liter ginger ale or ginger beer
- 2 cups orange juice
- 0.5 cup soy sauce
- 1 cup salt
- 1 (1-ounce) packet dry ranch-flavored salad dressing mix
Instructions
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients. Stir well to thoroughly incorporate. Pour into a quart-size container and store, refrigerated, for up to 2 weeks. Shake well before using.
MEAT RUB
Makes 3 cups
This rub is a good basic rub for almost any food you want to smoke. You can use it as a jumping-off point or a template, and then once you’ve mastered it, you can use the basic formula to create your own rubs.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 tablespoons mustard powder
- 2 tablespoons onion powder
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons ground cumin
- 0.5 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
Instructions
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients. Stir to combine thoroughly. You can store this rub in an airtight container indefinitely, but it’ll begin to lose its strength after about 3 months — and if I had any left after 6 months, I’d make a new batch.
RIB SPRITZ
Makes about 5 cups
This is what I use on pork ribs. It’s an added step that will improve the look and taste of your ribs. Make it the day before if you need to or do it right after you put your ribs on the smoker, and then start spritzing after your ribs have been on the smoker for 45 minutes.
- 3 cups apple juice
- 2 cups white wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons liquid imitation butter
Instructions
In a large spray bottle (one that will hold at least 5 cups of liquid), combine all the ingredients. Shake well to blend.
PORK GLAZE
Makes 3.5 cups
If you’re making a whole hog, you need to triple this recipe. For a shoulder, depending on how large it is — a whole shoulder versus a butt, for example — you may need to double it. For pork chops or a pork loin, this alone will do you right, and you may even have some left over.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Jack’s Old South Vinegar Sauce or make your own
- 1.5 cups apple jelly
- 1 cup light corn syrup
Instructions
Pour all the ingredients into the base of a large blender. Blend thoroughly to combine for about 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, using a spatula to scrape all of the glaze out of the blender. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
Recipes reprinted with the permission of Myron Mixon
Related stories:
- Here’s Where to Find the Best Barbecue in Northern Virginia
- 5 NoVA BBQ Side Dishes That Are Meals in Their Own Right
- Myron Mixon Ignites Vienna with New BBQ Joint
Feature image by Brent Herrig
Some of the recipes in this story originally ran in our April issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
