Bacon Wrapped Dates, Stuffed with Jalapeno’s, Slathered with a Raspberry Reduction Grilled Salad with a Gorgonzola Dressing

Coffee Brined Ribs

4 comments

Posted by Scott on Jul 16, 2012 in Indirect Grilling, Pork, Smoking, Uncategorized | 4 comments

Coffee Brined Ribs - 46

This is one of those barbecue recipes that came to me organically by simply seeing an ingredient and wanting to come up with a way to use it. In this case, my lovely wife has been making coffee the night before to make iced coffee in the morning. She’d left about eight ounces in the fridge and I had bought some ribs but wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. In a matter of moments, I texted her to let her know that I would make her more coffee as I used the last to brine ribs for one of my latest BBQ rib recipes. She of course replied with the rolleyes as I’m always trying weird ingredients when I BBQ. The resulting rib recipe was something I threw together and liked it so much that it goes on the site after just one stab at it.

Coffee Brine Ingredients:

1 slab baby back ribs, skinned and cut in half
8 oz coffee
20 turns of fresh black pepper
1/4 cup salt

Rub Ingredients:

1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp granulated garlic
1/2 tbsp granulated onion
1/2 tbsp smoked, Spanish paprika

If you are familiar with brining, the general ratio is 1 cup of salt per gallon of fluid. But here it looks like I’ve doubled up the salt. I have because I only had about three hours to brine. If I could’ve brined overnight, I would’ve used 1/8 cup salt with 1 cup of coffee. But I wanted to accelerate the coffee brining process.

Directions:

After skinning the ribs and cutting them in half, combine the the top four ingredients in a plastic bag, making sure that the salt is dissolved by sloshing the sealed bag around. Refrigerate the coffee brined ribs for 2-12 hours (if longer than 4 hours, cut the salt in half)

Here are the coffee brined ribs after three hours in the fridge:

In the coffee brine

Now combine the rest of the ingredients to make a rub.

Remove the ribs from the coffee brine, but do not rinse them. I normally do when I brine, but I want that coffee film to provide a flavor glue for the rub. Always rub the bone side first:

Bone Side Rubbed

Then rub the meat side (bone side down):

Coffee Brined Ribs Rubbed

The reason to always rub the bone side first, is the natural concave of the bones keeps the rub elevated off the cutting board and thus it won’t stick to the board:

See the Curve of the Bone

Now, this was the second cook in which I used my newest toy, the PitmasterIQ:

PitmasterIQ

It’s an ingenious little device. Essentially, it’s an air blower attached to a hose and a thermometer:

The Control Unit and the Hose of the PitmasterIQ connected to the Bottom of the Grill

The thermometer run through the upper vent the first time I used the PitmasterIQ

When the temp drops below the temp you set the PitmasterIQ to, the fan blows onto the fire keeping the temps constant. They can be attached to just about any grill and make that grill a set-it-and-forget it smoker. The unit runs $140 and makes smoking incredibly easy and low maintenance. Click here to purchase one.

Now back to the barbecue recipe.

The basic process is to get the grill to between 275-325 and cook the baby backs and smoke them for 2 hours. They will not be fall off the bone. If you prefer that, smoke them for 90 minutes, then put them in foil with a little liquid and cook for another 45 minutes and then back over the heat for 15 minutes.

I used plum wood for this smoke.

Here are the coffee brined ribs about an hour and 15 minutes into the process:

Ribs at 75 minutes in

I jerked the ribs that are on the bottom grate in the picture above.

I’ve got some nice pull back on the bones starting to happen on the ribs:

Meat Pulling Back

At a little over 2 hours (I was playing with the settings on the PitmasterIQ so it was a little longer than normal) the ribs looked like this.

Coffee Brined Ribs at a little over 2 hours

As you can tell, the sun had set by the time I took these pics.

Here’s some better pull back after two hours of grilling:

Better Pull Back

The two things to look for when determining if ribs are done are the bones pulling back and the flex of the slab, or in this case half slab. A raw slab can be bent in half, but as the meat cooks and the fat renders out, the slab firms up. You don’t want them to have no flex (that’s overdone), but pay attention to how much they bend and how much the meat pulls back from the bones. Those two factors will tell you when the ribs are done.

Pull the ribs from the grill and take them inside.

And here they are sliced:

Coffee Brined Ribs Sliced

Coffee is the perfect compliment with its natural savory/sweet profile to pork. The coffee brine intertwined musically with the savory/sweet rub making this barbecue recipe an instant conversation starter. I can’t wait to do them again and brine overnight. A coffee brine might be something I add to all sorts of rib recipes, no matter the rub. I bet it would’ve been great with the jerk ribs. Think of it. A total Jamaican theme – coffee and jerk. Guess what my next slab of ribs will be?

If you have any questions about the above dish please feel free to comment below or shoot me an email.

If you liked the coffee brined ribs, then click here for similar BBQ recipes.

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Click Here To Print Recipe Sheet

Coffee Brined Ribs

A refreshing rib recipe on more than one level

Author: Scott Thomas

Cuisine: BBQ

Recipe type: Ribs

Serves: 3

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 2 hours

Total time: 2 hours 10 mins

Ingredients

1 slab baby back ribs, skinned and cut in half
8 oz coffee
20 turns of fresh black pepper
¼ cup salt
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tbsp brown sugar
½ tbsp granulated garlic
½ tbsp granulated onion
½ tbsp smoked, Spanish paprika

Instructions

Skin the ribs and slice in half
Combine the coffee, salt and pepper in a resealable plastic bag and shake until the salt is dissolved
Add the ribs to the brine and refrigerate for 2-12 hours
Remove the ribs from the brine, rinse clean and pat dry with paper towels
Combine the pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar, garlic, onion and paprika to make the rub
Apply the rub to the bone side first
Flip over and repeat on the meat side
Prepare the grill for two zone/indirect grilling with coals and smoke wood on one side and nothing on the other
Target temperature inside the grill is 275-325
Place the ribs on the side with no heat and close the lid
When the meat pulls back from the bone a half inch (about 2 hours) the ribs are ready to serve