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Cooking wild hog ribs

Last night I cooked a rack of hog ribs on the grill. Used a dry rub and let them sit for a couple of hours and then cooked them on the grill with a cover of BBQ sauce. The meat was great but a bit on the tough side. How do you all cook ribs to keep them tender. This was a young hog with not much meat between the ribs but enough to make a meal. I seem to recall something about boiling ribs before grilling. Any suggestions? Thanks Mike

Cook em slow....real slow!

Cook them slow on a grill or smoker for an hour and a half to two hours to get smoke flavor, then wrap in foil with some apple juice concentrate or pineapple juice for two hours. Then take them out of the foil and baste with bbq sauce for the last half hour. Basically the same as I do for store bought. It is worth the extra steps. I usually cook between 225 and 230 degrees. Enjoy. Rebeldoc

How are you guys regulating the temperature in your smoker?

Veeerrrry slow, like the other guys said. We used to take the marinated meat from pigs we'd killed down to the beach and throw it on a charcoal grill way above the coals. Then we'd go spearfishing for an hour or so, and come in and grill up the fish we'd taken along with the pork. Made great surf n' turf tacos!

Thanks guys. I did cook them a bit fast and the grill was way too warm. Next time I'll try the suggestions.

I've done quite a few racks myself and the low and slow is right on. But they don't take near as long as a regular pork rib, a bout half the time. I've always wrapped at the end but not with the juice. But I will for sure try that next time to put some moisture back in it.

Mike

I just had ribs last night from that Texas Hog, I know they have to be cooked slow so I put them in the downstairs oven at 325 degrees for 3 hours, then put some mesquite on the coals on the grill and just finished them off. They were great!!! Graybeard62 P.S. Maybe it was just a tough young`n. With all the hogs you have kilt your bound to git a tough one once!!! Dan

True Dan, very true. But he wasn't tough enough to take a Magnus Buzzcut! Hope all is well with you up in Wisconsin.

2 hrs wrapped in foil w/ apple juice will have the meat falling off the bone!

Get one of these and make a day of it. I make my own dry rub and BBQ sauce as well as this offset cooker. Cook @ 225 for a couple hours then foil them or put them in a foil pan covered in foil with orange juice, brown sugar, vinegar and cayanne. put the heat to them for anther 1/2hr or so. Then pull them out of the foil and cook again for 1/2hr to get a little bark. When the fold while lifting with tongs they are ready. Some like them to fall off the bone but I do not like them mushy like that - best to have to pull a little to get the meat off the bone. Serve with sauce on the side because some, like myself, prefer the dry ribs and just dip a little sauce now and then.

Thanks Bushbow and others! I've got a few sets of ribs left to experiment with.

This gives me kind of an idea to do a book entitled "Bowsite Rib Recipes and other good eats!" Hmmmm.

Thanks all!

My mouth is starting to water !

I second the 2-3 hrs wrapped in foil. Best method is indirect heat, 250-300 degrees. Seasoned however you like best. Open foil & add bbq sause if you like, last 15-20 minutes of cooking leave open. Meat will be very tender and fall off bone.

We are going to do ours Hawaiian style in a pit. First we quarter the hog,pineapple and chipolte rub, wrapped and tied in cheese cloth, then wrapped in foil and left on the coals in an airtight pit for 24 hrs. We have done this three times and when you take the cheese cloth off the meat will fall off the bone. Hope it turns out as good as the others did.

Don't over do the juice in the wrap or foil tray - there only needs to be enough to get a little miosture boiling. When I make mine they sit overnight in the dry rub in the foil tray. When you pull them out there is all the juice from the meat and the rub in the tray. I just mix that with a little OJ and apple cider vinigar because there is brown sugar and cayanne already in the rub juice. If I have 2-3 slabs in the pan when I foil I add enough juice to cover the bottom of the pan or so. I am not drowning them.

The Hawaiian style sounds like a lot of fun.

Tell me more about the Hawaiian method. Do you line the pit with rock or something? How deep is the pit? What do you cover the pig with after the cheesecloth? Sounds like this might be something to try. Anybody use those automatic spits?

The pit is about 4 ft square, and 4 ft deep. I have never lined it with anything. Burn wood till you have it about half full of very hot coals, usually takes about 12 hrs or so, I am going to use mulberry wood , its hard and lasts along time.You want nothing but hot coals. After the rub,and the cheese cloth,tied with heavy string, wrap the meat in foil, use heavy duty, and several layers. Lay the packages in the pit on top of the coals, then cover the pit with tin sheeting and seal all the seams with dirt, so that it is air tight. This keeps the temp down for a nice slow cook. I leave it in for 24 hrs. When you are done and open the packages, cut the string which holds the cheese cloth and you should be able to pull the bones out, the meat should be very tender. This is alot of work , couple days to do it, and you never know what it will be till you open that first package. I have done this three times and always turns out incredable. We are planning to do it July 30. I will defianatly let you know how it turns out.

This is not the true Hawaiian method, they actually cook it whole, in chicken wire on top of the fire with hot rocks in the cavities of the pig. My way is the Kansas redneck farmboy method....Lol

I parboil them 30 to 45 minutes or until fork tender and spatrated from the bone a bit.... drain well and coat with barbecue sauce or the dry rub seasoning...let stand 10-15 minutes, then throw em on the grill (high coals or high gas grill setting) for about 3-5 minutes a side to carmelize the sauce or sugar in the rub... yum!

sorry, I wasn't fast enough to get any "before consumption" barbecued ribs pics ;-)

Fuzzy, you missed a spot. Make another mess of ribs and I'll show you how to eat them! LOL, I didn't wait on pictures either.

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