DUTCH OVEN SPARE RIBS

Barbeque pork spare ribs with charcoal grill and Dutch oven for melt in your mouth backyard or campground dinner.

Needed: Charcoal grill (covered), Charcoal, Hickory, oak or apple wood, Aluminum foil, Deep 12-inch Dutch oven, most of an afternoon, and 6-8 hungry folks.

Preparation time: 1/2 hour
Cook time: 4 hours (minimum 2 hours smoking over wood and 2 hours in dutch oven)
Total time: 4 1/2 hours

2-3 slabs of pork ribs
Vegetable oil
Salt, black pepper and Cajun seasoning
1 pint apple juice

Prepare charcoal grill for ash white hot coals and add foil wrapped wood chunks/chips after soaking wood in water. Punch holes in foil wrap to allow smoke to escape. Set grill to maximum height for slow browning/smoking.

While coals are burning down, split ribs into half slab pieces and swab with cooking oil. Salt, pepper and season liberally and then brown on both sides. Cover grill and slow smoke ribs to your satisfaction or about 2-3 hours. Have the fire on one end of the grill and the meat on the other end for indirect cooking.

Prepare deep 12-inch Dutch oven by placing an inverted pie pan, trivet or other spacer into oven bottom. This prevents ribs on the bottom from sticking and burning. You may line Dutch oven with aluminum foil to ease clean up chores.

Place Dutch oven on the charcoal grill and add the browned/smoked ribs. When the pot is half full of ribs I add apple juice to cover the bottom of the iron pot about 1-inch deep. Continue loading the oven with the browned ribs. The steaming apple juice flavors the bottom ribs thoroughly and the top ribs somewhat less.

Slow cook ribs covered, about 2-3 hours or until meat is tender but not quite falling off the bone. Add briquettes to the fire as necessary. Needs no BBQ sauce.

Contributed by: Cliff Thirtyacre.

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