Bacon Pineapple Ribs

Slow smoked baby back ribs slathered with a slurry made from pineapple juice, bacon drippings and garlic before being sliced and served. Bacon Pineapple Ribs are pretty simple but pack a ton of flavor.

Bacon Pineapple Ribs? Yeah, you read that right. These ribs are absolutely epic and they are only a few ingredients. One of which is bacon grease because there is a bacon grease, pineapple, honey, garlic slurry that will be brushed onto the ribs as they smoke. Please fasten your seatbelts and return your tray table to its full upright and locked position.

Bacon Pineapple Ribs Ingredients:

• 6 slices of bacon, cooked, fat drained and reserved for later
• 6 ounces of pineapple juice
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp of minced garlic (feel free to up this to a tbsp)
• 1 slab of baby back ribs, membrane removed
• salt
• pepper
• your favorite BBQ rub

First, cook that bacon:

Then, add the bacon fat to an oven safe sauce pot along with the pineapple juice, honey and garlic:

Now let’s prep those ribs:

After the membrane has been removed we can season the ribs. Need some help removing the membrane?

Here are a couple tips on how to remove the membrane as well as some inventive ways to use mustard and mayo on ribs. 

Always season meat side down first.

So hit the bone side with the salt, pepper and your favorite BBQ rub:

Why the meat side down/bone side up first? Because the natural concave of the bones will keep the seasoning off the cutting board.

Do the meat side first and when you flip the ribs over to do the bone side, the seasoning that runs down the middle of the ribs lengthwise will stick to the cutting board rather than the meat.

Now do the meat side:

What is the 3-2-1 method for ribs?

The 3-2-1 method entails smoking ribs at 225F for 3 hours, wrapping them in foil or peach butcher paper (along with some butter or margarine, honey, brown sugar, syrup, etc) and back on the grill for 2 hours and then out of the foil and back on the grill for an hour. If you dig fall off the bone ribs, this is the method for you as they will be fall off the bone every time, but the bark won’t be great. For great bark, don’t use foil or butcher paper at all.

How to Smoke Bacon Pineapple Ribs

Prepare the pellet grill for high heat smoking or about 300F degrees.

I realize that’s not really high heat, but the alliteration sounds better than medium heat grilling.

Place the ribs on the grill:

Don’t forget to put the bacon/pineapple concoction on the cooker too, in this case, my pellet smoker.

Close the lid to let the smoke work its magic on both the ribs and the slurry:

After 30 minutes on the grill, to allow the rub to adhere to the ribs, brush on the bacon/pineapple sauce and continue to do so every 20 minutes until the ribs are done:

But how long until pork ribs are done?

Normally, a slab of baby back ribs smoked at 300F take right about 2 hours to be competition ready and 2.5 hours (with the help of some foil for part of that) to be fall off the bone ready, but that would be on a cooker that I left alone for 2 hours and didn’t open the lid every 20 minutes. And while the double walled Timberline does a magical job of holding consistent temps, all that opening of the grill will slow things down, depending on the weather outside, at least 30 minutes. So shoot for 2.5 hours for competition ready if not 3 hours if it’s a cold, blustery day.

Here are the ribs after the first basting with the sauce:

And here are my bacon pineapple ribs after the last basting of sauce about 2 hours later for a total of 2 hours and 30 or 40 minutes on the cooker:

They have browned up to a nice mahogany and the bones are sticking out 1/3-1/2 inch.

Time to remove from the grill and slice and serve only after everyone has gotten their obligatory Instagram pics!

And here are my ribs sliced and plated:

And for those that don’t think pellet grills don’t put out enough smoke.

Check the close up of the smoke ring:

Bacon Pineapple Ribs Recap:

But how did they taste? Oh my! The sweetness of the pineapple and honey countered by the savory of the garlic and bacon make the sauce something that should be illegal in some states. Then the seasoning from the BBQ rub along with the smoke from the grill and this recipe is a sure winner! And to top it off, there are six slices of bacon to be munched on while cooking these ribs. That’s a six time winner right there before the bacon pineapple ribs even come off the smoker!

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Recipe Card:

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5 from 1 vote

Bacon Pineapple Ribs

Dry rubbed ribs, slathered in a bacon/pineapple/honey/garlic sauce and smoked for more than two hours

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time2 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Course: Entree, Finger Food, Main Course

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Barbecue, BBQ, Grilling, North American, Pork, Pork Ribs, Ribs

Keyword: Baby Back Ribs, Baby Backs, Bacon, Barbecue, Barbecue Ribs, BBQ, BBQ Ribs, Pellet Cooker, Pellet Grill, Pellet Smoker, Pineapple, Pork Ribs, Ribs, Smoked Baby Back Ribs, Smoked Ribs

Servings: 3 People

Ingredients

• 6 slice bacon cooked, fat drained and reserved for later
• 6 oz pineapple juice
• ¼ cup honey
• 1-3 tsp garlic minced
• 1 slab baby back ribs membrane removed
• salt
• pepper
• your favorite BBQ rub

Instructions

• Fry the bacon and pour the fat into an oven safe pot along with the pineapple juice, honey and garlic
• Remove the membrane from the ribs and season bone side first with salt, pepper and your favorite BBQ rub
• Season the meat side and then place on a 300 degree smoker along with the pot with the sauce
• After 30 minutes to let the rub set on the meat, brush the sauce on the ribs, repeating every 20 minutes until the rib bones poke out 1/3 to 1/2 inch or 2.5-3 hours.
• Remove from the smoker, slice and serve

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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BBQ Grilling

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This article was initially published on: January 1, 2018