Foil Boat Ribs

Spare ribs, skinned, trimmed to St. Louis style ribs, and seasoned then smoked on a charcoal grill using indirect grilling (two zone grilling). The smoked ribs then go into an open-topped foil boat filled with butter and barbecue sauce to finish smoking while simmering in that tasty glaze. By keeping the foil open, the meat simmers in its own juices while still taking on that smoke. The next evolution of using foil in barbecue is foil boat ribs.

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What are Foil Boat Ribs?

In the 3 2 1 method of smoking ribs, the 2 stands for the 2 hours the ribs are wrapped in foil (along with some butter or margarine and some sort of sweetener like syrup, honey or brown sugar). The problem is that during the foiled phase, the ribs don’t take on any more smoke. Enter the foil boat. Instead of completely wrapping the ribs in foil, create a foil boat (it looks more like a barge) and set the ribs in the foil, leaving the top open so the ribs still simmer in the butter or margarine and sweeteners but at the same time takes on some smoke. 

Foil Boat Ribs Ingredients:

• 2 slabs St. Louis style ribs
• 1 cup of your favorite BBQ rub
• Salt (optional)
• Aluminum foil
• 8-10 pats of butter – divided
• 2 cups of BBQ sauce – divided (substitute apple butter)

I’m going with a double layer of aluminum foil for the foil boats simply because foil is flimsy by design.

With the price of ribs through the roof, we are skipping our preferred baby back ribs and saving some money on un-trimmed spareribs and taking a little effort to turn them into St. Louis style ribs.

St. Louis style ribs are just spareribs trimmed down to a perfect rectangle of ribs so that they cook evenly:

So how do we turn a slab like this into what we see above:

Truth be told, these are already trimmed ribs. I just put them back together so you can see what an untrimmed slab looks like.

If you look closely, you can see the cuts in that pic above.

How to Trim St. Louis Style Ribs

This is going to be more of a pictorial than it will be written instructions. I feel like showing helps people learn better than telling. 

Here are the cuts that are needed to make to trim it down to a slab of St. Louis style ribs:

That piece of meat along the bottom is from the backside of the ribs. It’s a flap that can be left on, but I remove it because otherwise some of the ribs will be meatier than others and thus this slab will cook unevenly.

The flap looks like this:

While we have the ribs flipped over, let’s remove that membrane that runs along the back:

And now we have our slab of St. Louis style ribs:

And here’s a quick 30 second video showing how to trim a slab of spares into St. Louis style ribs:

Season the Foil Boat Ribs

I listed salt as optional here. Review the rub you plan to use and if the first ingredient is salt, you probably don’t need any extra salt.

Start with the ribs meat side down:

By starting meat side down (or bone side up) the natural curve of the bones will help to keep the rub elevated off the cutting board.

This will minimize how much of the seasoning sticks to the cutting board and also minimize having to reapply said seasoning:

Then flip the ribs over and season the meat side:

We aren’t done yet. The edges all the way around that slab need to be seasoned too.

Luckily, there’s lots of rub on the cutting board already and we will just push those ribs down onto that rub and it should stick to the meat:

While now would be the time go prep the grill, I wanted to talk about silver skin first.

It’s not uncommon for a slab of pork ribs (or pork tenderloin) to have something like this on it:

Dad is adamant that all silver skin is in fact devil spawn and must be eradicated. I disagree. Beef silver skin does need to be removed to the last fiber, but pork silver skin will simply melt away and not impact the flavor or the texture in any way. I left that there. 

How to Grill Foil Boat Ribs

Now, back to prepping the grill. We went with a classic rectangular box grill with coals on one side and nothing on the other. We put the ribs on the side with no coals and drop smoke wood on the side with the coals. Easy peazy, lemon squeezy. Here are the ribs going on the grill on the right side, away from the lake, with the coals on the left (closer to the water) because the wind moves from the lake.

So, in this configuration the wind pushes through those vents on that side and over the ribs:

Add some smoke wood to the coals (we used some pear wood):

No pear wood? No problem. 

If you don’t have access to pear wood don’t fret. I got these chunks when my Father in Law took down a Bradford pear (yes ornamental fruit wood is just as good as regular fruit wood).

For more nuggets of knowledge about smoke woods as well as a heavy list of types of wood that can be smoked and what they pair with check this link. 

Target temp inside the cooker is around 300°F (+/- 25°F).

After 30 minutes, the ribs are darkening up a bit:

After about 90 minutes bones are peeking out nicely on one of the slabs and the edges are browning a bit:

Time to make our foil boat. Start with a piece of aluminum foil that is a little longer than double the length of one slab of the ribs.

Then fold that foil in half, folding the edges up to form a bit of a lip and add the butter:

Now add the BBQ sauce:

Don’t like barbecue sauce? No problem

OOORRRR, you could add apple butter (or any fruit butter like this recipe where we did pumpkin butter ribs in a foil boat):

Next place a slab of ribs, meat side down, on the butter and liquid:

Then fold the edges of the foil up around the slab of ribs, but don’t cover the top:

And place the foil boat ribs back on the cooker:

This is also a good time to toss on another chunk of smoke wood with those foil boat tops being open, these slabs of ribs will continue to take on that sweet smoke:

Once the sauce and butter starts simmering, it doesn’t take long for the bones to start poking out more (which is our universal indicator that ribs are done):

The butter/BBQ sauce mixes up on its own for the most part:

How long should ribs cook in foil?

Generally speaking ribs only need about an hour in the foil, whether completely encased or in a foil boat like this. To guarantee fall off the bone go 90 minutes or even 2 hours. I generally check the bones at about 45 minutes. After the bones really start peeking out of the meat, we know our foil boat ribs are just about done.

Time to remove them from the foil.

There are a couple options here; place them bone side down on the side with no coals and close the lid for 30-45 minutes to thicken up that glaze, or place the slabs meat side down over the hot coals.

I did the latter:

Pro Tip #1 ~ Don’t throw away the sauce in the foil boat. That buttery slurry is a one-way ticket to Flavortown

And the second pro-tip is fairly obvious, but it is vitally important.

Pro Tip #2 ~ Don’t walk away from the ribs once they hit the hot part of the grill. Almost all BBQ sauces have a lot of sugar, and so does the apple butter.

Keep peeking at the meat side to make sure they don’t burn

All we are doing is getting a bit of char, which also almost immediately thickens that glaze:

What do you do if the rib bones don’t peek out?

You will also notice that for some reason, on that slab above, none of the bones have peeked out. None at all. That doesn’t happen very often. The vast majority of the time, the bones tell when the ribs are done. But every once in a while the bones just don’t peek out.

The ribs are done, based on our probe thermometer, but no bones peeked out:

It happens. 

Only a three-degree difference here and those bones are sticking out more than half an inch:

One more angle:

Time to carve:

Nice smoke ring:

Time to slather the ribs with that slurry

And finally, don’t forget that sauce in the foil boat:

Time to eat:

I know some don’t like the sauce, feel free to eat them without the sauce

I’m doing ribs more and more with the foil boat these days, particularly any time I am craving some saucy ribs!

Oh, but how was the bite? 

You tell me…

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Foil Boat Ribs Recipe Card

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5 from 1 vote

Foil Boat Ribs

Foil Boat Ribs: Pork ribs smoked and then placed in a aluminum foil boat with BBQ sauce and butter and smoked some more to a smoky, juicy perfection

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time3 hours hrs

Course: Entree, Main Course, Ribs

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

Keyword: Barbecue, BBQ, Charcoal, Charcoal Grill, Fall off the bone, Finger Food, Foil Boat, Foil Boat Ribs, Grill, Grilling, Heavy Duty Foil, Indirect Grilling, Lump Charcoal, Pork, Pork Spare Ribs, Ribs, Smoker, Spare Ribs, St. Louis Style Ribs

Servings: 6

Equipment

• 1 Package Aluminum Foil

Ingredients

• 2 slabs spare ribs Trimmed out to be St. Louis style ribs
• 1 cup your favorite BBQ rub
• salt optional
• 8-10 pats butter
• 2 cups BBQ sauce – divided Substitute apple butter

Instructions

• Trim the pork spare ribs to be St. Louis style ribs
• Remove the membrane off the bone side of the ribs
• Season the bone side first with BBQ rub and the salt (if needed)
• Flip over and and season the meat side
• Prepare the grill for two zone grilling with hot coals on one side and nothing on the other
• Place the ribs on the side of the grill with no coals and a chunk of smoke wood on the fire
• Target internal temperature of the grill is 300°F degrees
• Smoke the ribs for 90 minutes
• Prepare an aluminum foil boat for each slab by taking a piece of foil a little longer than twice the length of each slab and folding it in half
• Fold the foil up around the edges to create a lip
• Add half the butter to each boat and half the BBQ sauce or apple butter
• Place the ribs meat side down and then tighten up the foil around the ribs, leaving the top open
• Place the foil boat ribs back on the indirect side of the grill and add another chunk of smoke wood over the coals if needed
• Once the bones stick out more than a half inch remove from the boat (reserving the buttery slurry in the boat) and place the ribs meat side down over the hot fire
• Sear quickly until there is a little char on the ribs and then platter
• Slice the ribs and pour over the butter slurry
• Serve

Video

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: May 24, 2022