Country Style Ribs

It has been a while since I used my smoker. I believe the last time I used it was for Brayden's birthday party. That was over a month ago. I have been waiting for pork shoulder to go on sale for a decent price. We went shopping on Saturday at Meijer and I saw that pork shoulders were on sale for $1.99/lb. They also had pork shoulder country style ribs on sale for $2.19/lb. I was torn as to what to get because I have been wanting to try making country style ribs (CSRs). For those that don't know, CSRs are not ribs at all. They are a pork shoulder that is cut down into 1"-2" thick steaks. I decided to get both the CSRs and the pork shoulder and to make the CSRs first.

I consulted with my good buddy Jim to see how he makes these since I knew he had made them before. I also have been reading up on how to make them.  It seems everyone makes them different. Jim said he usually smokes them for about 4-6 hours.  I made sure to allow myself enough time so we can eat these for dinner. I started about 10:00. I threw together a basic BBQ rub.  I then seasoned them up with my homemade rub and let them sit for about an hour and a half.

 

 

I got the smoker fired up using the Minion Method.  For those who do not know, the Minion Method is used for low and slow cooks.  You fill your charcoal ring and take about 10-15 lit briquettes and throw them on top of the unlit coals.  There are variations to how people do the Minion Method.

 I decided to use cherry wood for these.  I waited for the temp in the smoker to get where I wanted before throwing the cherry wood into the charcoal ring. Once I started getting good smoke, I put the CSRs on.  It was around 11:40.

After about an hour and a half, I opened the lid and checked the temp of the CSRs and they were sitting at 145 degrees.

I did more reading up on CSRs and I was reading differing opinions from everyone. Some people say to pull them off when the internal temp reaches 165-170 and others say to wait until the internal temperature hits 190-195. Some say to grill and others say to smoke. I was not sure how long to smoke them after reading all of that.  I decided to let them keep on cooking. My wife was bored and wanted to get out of the house, so away we went. By the time we got home, the CSRs had been on the smoker for 5 hours and 10 minutes. They were very tender at this point. I decided to go ahead and sauce them and keep them on for another 20 minutes.

As you can see in the picture above, they fell apart as I was flipping them to sauce the other side. I pulled the CSRs off of the smoker at the five and a half hour point. I brought them inside and sauced them again and let them rest for about 30 minutes. 

 

 

They were a little dryer than the way I prefer my pork, but they were still very edible.  The smoke was dead on.  It was there, but not overpowering at all.  Steph had finished her plate full before I had my first bite.  Ella did a great job chowing down on them too.  Brayden, not so much.  He ate an apple and some mac and cheese for dinner.  I guess two out of 3 was not too bad.  Jenny seemed to like them too.  She said she wasn't hungry, but had a couple of helpings.  This was all that was leftover:

I think if there is a next time I will not cook them as long. 

Thanks for looking!