Slow Cooker Grilled Ribs. (Ribs according to Kurt)

One of the regulars (OK, the only regular at that point) from the Beer Can Scramble mentioned cooking ribs over the Memorial Day weekend.

Oooo.  Ribs. 

I am impressed.   

I have never once attempted ribs. 

Mainly because every recipe I have ever seen for them starts with about two hours of oven time.  I love my new kitchen, but I am way too distractable to have something going on there for two whole hours.  (Especially something that contributes heat to the house in the summertime.)

Then he REALLY got my attention. "Oh, it's easy in the slow cooker." 

Slow cooker!  For ribs?  Why didn't I think of that?

Where have these been all my life?

We still had 17 miles of street riding to get home from the trail.  In the time it took for Popeye to make a last quick trip into the bushes, Kurt told me the entire recipe, standing over our bikes at the trailhead.

And wouldn't you know?   Publix had a sale on ribs the very next day.   While I still remembered the whole recipe!  (Well almost the whole recipe.) 

It was my kind of recipe, after all.

 

Slow Cooker Grilled Ribs.

Ribs (in this case, pork spareribs, but use any ribs you like)

Rub  (whatever kind you like)

Vinegar

Brown Sugar

BBQ sauce (whatever kind you like)


Cut the ribs into whatever portion sizes you like. 

Put on any rub that you like.  

(I totally forgot this step and had to fish them out of the pot and find something to use for rub, since I didn't have any store bought rub around.  I ended up using salt and pepper and a bit of chili powder.  Which was ok for me, but next time I will try to concoct something spicier for Popeye.)

OK, ribs all rubbed, THEN put them in the pot. 

Add a couple of glugs of vinegar, I think he said, and a couple spoonfuls of brown sugar. 

Glugs of vinegar, sure.  No problem. 

"Spoonfuls?" I ask, in a quick email to Kurt.  "Like tablespoons?" 

The answer comes back immediately.  It wasn't spoonfuls, it was "blobs". 

Oh yeah, that's right.  Blobs.

3 blobs of brown sugar

Quoting Kurt: "In this case a blob is the precise amount you get when you pull out a cereal spoon from the drawer and heap it full".

Rub, vinegar, sugar.  Nothing else?  No water or anything?

Nope, that's all you need. 

The complicated part was that Kurt has a programmable slow cooker and I don't.  So the two hours low, two hours high, and two hours low again was sort of lost on me.  I totally forgot to come back and reset the cooker.  The ribs, abandoned, stayed on low all day. 

So.  9 hours on low.  (Hmmm, looking pretty good in there...)

Then!  Take em out.  Throw 'em on the grill for a few minutes per side, plastered with your favorite BBQ sauce.

Time to e...  nom nom nom nom...

OMG.  Definitely my kind of recipe.