Smoked Baby Back Ribs with Espresso Barbecue Sauce

By cindyandmojo

Ingredients

• 6 pounds (3 racks) Baby Back Ribs
• Sea Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp minced garlic
• 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes or 1 can (15 oz) tomatoes
• 3/4 cup molasses
• 3/4 cup honey
• 2 Tbsp course Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup espresso (I used dried espresso powder reconstituted with water)

Details

Servings 6
Preparation time 10mins
Cooking time 310mins
Adapted from creative-culinary.com

Preparation

Step 1

the end of August asking if I could join their CEO, John McLemore and their social media specialist, Alicia McGlamory, for lunch the following week. John had a new book out called, ‘Dadgum That’s Good!’ filled with recipes for smoking, grilling, frying, boiling and steaming and wanted to introduce it to some folks. By folks…I presumed I would meet other local food bloggers and I was game since grilling really is something I love.

Safe – Automatic shut-off prevents over heating and the adjustable door latch and air damper provides an airtight seal and controlled smoking.

Convenient – uses your favorite, regular wood chips with a side chip loader so you can add chips without opening the door and letting heat and smoke escape and the built-in Viewing Window means you can watch your food slow smoke without opening the door and letting heat out. It’s also easy to clean with a built in bottom drip pan and a rear mounted drip tray.

Each item you do will get you ONE chance to win for a total of 3 chances. If you are already doing any of these, they do count; just make note of that in your comment.

is also on Facebook and has a couple of additional Twitter accounts…I know they would love for you to become a part of their online family but these are not required for participation in this contest:

John and Alecia also gave me a copy of John’s latest cookbook, ‘Dadgum That’s Good’ and I’ve been dying to try the Espresso Barbecue Sauce. I did make some slight modifications. John’s recipe calls for ketchup and I wanted to start with fresh tomatoes. Now that my daughter Lauren has moved into her own apartment, I’m not sure I’ll ever buy ketchup again. After seeing that girl ruin food with a squirt of ketchup on almost everything; I sort of went the other direction and just don’t care for it. Because I wasn’t using ketchup with sugar, I also made a few other revisions including the addition of molasses. And all I can say is this.

Season the ribs on both sides with salt and pepper and smoke for 3 hours at 225 degrees in preheated smoker using hickory chips during first 2 hours of smoking.

To Make Espresso BBQ Sauce, put olive oil in saucepan.

Add garlic and saute for additional 2-3 minutes or until garlic just starts to turn golden.

Add tomatoes, molasses, honey, mustard and espresso and simmer until thickened; approximately 30 minutes.

Put sauce into a blender, a half of the batch at a time and blend until smooth.

add one

fantastic and so much flavor with this sauce on the ribs. Never new the espresso could make ribs taste even better. Now I need to get me a smoker to do it right.

I’m glad you enjoyed the sauce Christopher; I like using espresso a lot; it doesn’t necessarily make something taste like coffee as much as ads a depth to the flavor. It is a favorite of mine now too!

My husband and I both love entertaining. We enjoy having a group of friends over and firing up our grill or our big green egg . We’ve enjoyed the versatility of the green egg and have used it for everything from pizza to salmon to brisket. I’d love this new toy to add to our outdoor cooking arsenal Can’t wait to try the above recipe! Thanks to you both for this wonderful contest

My favorite story is when my kids were little we were in a little town in the Wisconsin Dells and we ordered ribs at a restaurant (that was way before my daughter became a vegetarian). When the ribs came they fell right off the bones…they were so moist too. My son thought something was wrong with them since they fell off the bones and he wouldn’t eat any until we mixed the meat into the beans. At the end of dinner we all decided those were the best ribs we had ever had…moist and flavorful. I tried for a few years to replicate them and finally found the way to make them….in a pressure cooker. Now I pressure cook my ribs and then put them in my stove top smoker. Yum. Would love to try the smoker you used.

My story – is more of a complaint. I had a smoker, but it was so inconvenient and didn’t hold the heat. One day I nursed it along as best I could trying to keep the smoker from getting cold (because it was losing heat), keeping the smoke going, blocking it from the wind and still after most of the day we had raw meat. I was ready to give up on smokers. One day (even if I don’t win) I will find another smoker, and it will have door on the front instead of a top load. That didn’t work out well at all.

Oh my goodness!! That smoker rocks!! And those ribs… fortunately, my family is not home right now because if they saw this post I would be making ribs RIGHT NOW!! Fortunately, I can now make them as a surprise and earn more brownie points!!!

Seriously can’t WAIT to make this…

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet Most Recent Post:

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet Most Recent Post:

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet Most Recent Post:

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet

Heather | Farmgirl Gourmet Most Recent Post:

One of my favorite BBQ things to make it grilled BBQ chicken pizza. I do the whole thing right on the grate, crust and all. The trick is to have all the toppings ready to go at the grille before you turn it on. I’ve dreamed of doing it with smoked brisket. Maybe dreams will come true!!!

Almost makes me want to abandon my Canadian citizenship so I can enter. ALmost. ;)

Trying to make pizza on a grill. Oy! Next time I need to pre-bake the crust in the oven, I think. Disaster!

I’m a terrible barbeque girl. In fact, I’ve been banned from grilling ever again! You set the carport on fire ONE TIME and the whole family thinks that you’re a menace. If Daddy had swept the leaves out of there like I had asked, they wouldn’t have caught fire, right? So it’s totally his fault. ((First person to say that I shouldn’t have been bbq’ing in the carport gets a rib bone in the eye!))

What a giveaway! Fantastic. I have only recently gotten into grilling (I’ve lived in apartments for 95% of my adult life until a few months ago), so I’m learning. My parents recently came to visit from Iowa, and so I asked them to bring some sweet corn and we grilled it. Yes, we did! It’s hard to mess up good quality Iowa sweet corn, but it’s WAY better on the grill. Problem is you need a good 20-30 minutes to prepare. You peel back the husk and take out the stringy parts (I’m sure there is a technical term, but I’m too lazy too google it). I melted butter and added in some sea salt to the mixture, which I then rubbed on the corn. Then I pulled the husks back over the corn using one piece of the husk to tie around the cob and make a cute little package. You grill for 20-25 minutes on medium heat. SO WORTH IT.

My one and only attempt at grilling ribs was a complete disaster! I followed a recipe and an indirect heat, low and slow method and thought I was making these killer, fall off the bone ribs. I had my in-laws over for dinner only to end up serving some seriously raw in the middle ribs! Talk about mortified!! I’ve been gun shy about making ribs ever since :)

I can make ANYTHING on a grill. Having lived in South Florida and survived 5 hurricanes, and lived for weeks without power, I’m kinda a pro, but NOT at smoking… I would LOVE to learn how to smoke…

Favorite BBQ Story…. during a hurricane of course, lol (though I grill and BBQ ALL year long) and we had used most of our food. We were down to ground turkey which was no longer frozen, various canned vegetables, rice, chicken stock and eggs… so I invented “pilgrim stew.” I literally threw it all into a Le Cruset and put it on the grill. Browned the ground turkey first, then added the stock, then rice, then canned veggies (we are talking beans, peas, carrots, corn, green beans, tomatoes, you name it) thank heavens for salt and pepper! It wasn’t bad, it filled us and our neighbors up!

I love BBQ, my favorite is cooking a whole turkey on my weber (indirect heat and drip pan). The look on peoples eyes when I open the lid and there is a whole turkey on the grill is priceless.

Like many families, the only thing my dad cooked was BBQ. One of the strongest food memories I have is from my early childhood is our family gathered around the table with a large platter piled full of BBQ Chicken sitting in the center. That chicken with crispy skin charred black in places is the taste of BBQ to me.

I miss you, Dave and i miss the fantastic meals you would make for us. RIP. :)

My husband totally wooed me with his cooking talents before we were married (and ever since then I might add), so one day I decided to really impress him while he was at work. I went to the store and purchased the LARGEST chicken I could find. My thoughts were…the bigger the bird, the juicier it would be.

And up until this past summer, I never touched that grill again. But, this summer I have managed to make some wonderful dinners on the BBQ grill and now I really want to try my hand at smoking things like a chicken (albeit smaller than my first), ribs, turkey, brisket, pork loin and so many other things! I’ve watched so many of John McLemore’s videos and some tv appearances and he truly inspires you to try your hand at smoking (among other things).

I am new to grilling and would love to trying smoking meat. I would love to try to make brisket and burnt ends in this smoker.

What an amazing giveaway! My grandfather always makes bbq ribs at family events, and one year he somehow forgot to marinade them or make the sauce. An honest mistake, but people were positively mutinous! He hasn’t forgotten since…

I’m counting this as a bbq story, I recently purchased a new home with a fireplace. My big brother was in town helping me fix up the place and when he was here he cooked steaks on the grate inside my fireplace. They were some of the most amazing steaks I’ve ever tasted!

My boyfriend and I bbq as much as possible…unfortuantly all we have is a tabletop grill, so we have to do it in batches! We would LOVE to win this. It would make our bbq experiences so much better!

Growing up, we didn’t have a grill, so mom boiled the ribs, then baked them. Imagine my surprise when I found out there was any other way to cook them.

Now we NEED a smoker…for Christmas. My dad promised to make his award winning BBQ if we have one! PLEASE?!?

My BBQ success or failure? The first time I made BBQ ribs for my husband, using Alton Brown’s recipe and defying his mother’s horrid tradition of boiling the meat first (abomination!). I have to say I managed to convert him!

Even though my husband does most of the grilling I love to smoke a pork roast and make pulled pork and homemade coleslaw for the family. I would love to win this smoker!

I sure can cook and grill, and love to do it, but I’m a huge failure when it comes to baking. I think it has something to do with needing to follow exact instructions vs. being able to use my own creativity and measurements. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I think being able to use some of my own creativity to master the art of a perfectly smoked pork for the Packer game on Sunday’s would not only make me the best fiancee in the world, but also aligns with my skills!

After putting the hamburgers on the grill, he settled in to watching one of those horrible hallmark movies (which he loves). I feel the need to add that my mother and I were a bit distracted that day as we were also planning the meal for my sister-in-law’s upcoming baby shower. Hours pass….and more hours. It was only after the completion of hallmark movie number 2 that my stepfather remembered that there was a grill on, with burgers still on it. Needless to say they were about 2 inches in diameter and were as hard a hockey pucks. We had potato salad for dinner. He leaves the grilling to me nowadays and has never boasted about being a grill master again.

My neice was graduating HS and my sister decided not to do any cooking. She hired a caterer to do it for her. I said what can I do? She had heard I had tried smoking and asked if I could do pulled pork for it. I said no problem, how many people. So she gave me a number and I calculated how many butss to do. I decided to do a bit more, I had a feeling it would go over well. I also made a chipotle BBQ sauce for it and I also bought a regular sauce. Well to make a long story short. All of my pulled pork, including all the extra was gone well before the catered food. Most use my chipotle bbq sauce and loved it. I had alot of people ask me how i did it and if I would be able to make them some another time. Everyone loved it, well the caterer wasnt to happy……LOL

Last time I made dry rub ribs, I accidentally doubled the cinnamon, and the ribs ended up tasting a whole lot like Christmas! They weren’t bad, but definitely too candy-ish for my taste. Next time I’ll measure twice, pour once! Thanks for the giveaway!

recipe: add 1 jalapeno to my sauce

recipe had a water stain over the “1″ so add whole jar

BBQ story… So, all of our newlywed friends (oh, about 13ish years ago now) thought I was just the most bizarre wife because each birthday, anniversary, etc. I was always out for appliances and tools for the kitchen, which I’m told is usually quite the taboo for gifts. They wanted clothes, jewelry, etc. – I wanted mixers, blenders and most especially a charcoal kettle grill. I’m proud to say that I still have said grill and use it (not as often as I’d like) but fairly regularly. Now I just need a gas one for speed. If I had a smoker, well, my outdoor ‘kitchen’ (aka ‘the deck’) would be that much more complete and there are no limits to the number of things we could think up to get ‘smokin’.

Great giveaway Barb! I wanted to stop by mostly because I feel bad that I’ve been so MIA, but let’s face it, I finally got off my butt to comment because this would enable me to make my own bacon and then therefore that bacon jam of yours that has been slowly killing me for weeks! And, oh, those ribs! Yeah. I’m definitely more carnivore than anything else!

My husband makes the absolute BEST smoked pork shoulder. It is a family favorite, and sooo easy! It would be great to have an electric smoker instead of the propane one, thats for sure!!

I think women should take charge of the smoker, I’ve got a number of female friends that have done just that – we do the cure, make the rubs, the basting sauces (I love to spray my dry rubbed ribs with 1/2 & 1/2 bourbon and apple juice), and concoct sides and desserts to make in the smoker. My husband used to say “if it’ll sit still she’ll smoke it!”

I can remember a time when we set our smoker up on the aft deck of our houseboat and filled it with pork and turkey to use in a special chili lunch I was planning on making for the people I worked with. There was just something special about the smoked meats in the chili. Everyone loved it and wanted to know what I’d done to make it so “different”. Smile.

This is an incredible give away! You have no idea how great! When we decided to take a 3 month trip to CA from North Dakota we had to make the hardest decision ever – we had to leave our smoker in storage there!

Many years ago I got my first smoker and my first grill, living alone allowed me to enjoy all my smoked goodness, and share with good friends. When I met my husband I moved my smoker into his backyard in one of the first loads and turned him on to the wonder of cherry smoked leg of lamb, smoked duck, a lovely smoked turkey for our wedding reception (that disappeared in a heartbeat)! He was sooooooo hooked!

Earlier this summer my husband was grilling on our back porch. I was inside and had just put our fresh sweet corn in water on the stove top. The phone rang and was for my husband so I stepped outside and took it to him. Meanwhile our neighbors had come over to talk to my husband while grilling so I stood outside with them for a few minutes to talk to them while he was on the phone. The wife of the other couple (in their 70′s) had been wanting us to come see their house. She asked several times so finally we said we’d come over quickly – stupidly leaving the grill and completely forgetting about the corn. About 20 minutes later during the house tour my husband mentions his excitement for fresh sweet corn. The trigger went off and I screamed “the sweet corn”!! I ran across the yards back into our home to find the water had completely boiled down and the corn was scorched on the bottom of the pan. Needless to say we had burnt burgers and no corn for supper that night!

I bought my husband a new BBQ for Christmas a few years ago (we lived in Kansas). It was on our deck. He didn’t set the lock on the wheels. Late one night, we heard what we thought was seriously a tornado coming, LOUD, banging sounding wind. Ran out and looked on the deck (there’d be no tornado warning, but it was windy out). The BBQ, rolled over to the stairs of the deck and went crashing down about 8 steps. :( It was only a few months after I’d given it to him as a gift. It got a hole in it, but thankfully still worked! When we moved from Kansas last year, he gave it away free to someone–and we still don’t have a grill! It drove me nuts over the summer not to have one yet! Then with that grill, one time I was out of town and my husband had a friend over and they were making ribs for them and the boys. They shut the lid on the grill (with ribs inside) and my husband left to run to the store. Half way there, he had the impression to go back. (The friend was in another room with the boys). The ribs were under the shut BBQ shooting flames out in all directions (the BBQ was on our roofed deck). If he wouldn’t have gone back, it would have caught the house on fire! Lesson–Mommy can’t ever go out of town ;), 2–when grilling ribs, leave the lid open when the grill is on the deck! sigh

One time my then boyfriend and I went camping. We were about 8000 feet in elevation and I have never been in windier weather. We had a hellava time keeping the BBQ lit to make our supper. After many attempts, we finally got a little fire to cook our burgers or what ever it was we were cookin, but we had to eat in the car because of the wind. We got up really early the next morning and left. Just too damn windy. We coulldn’t do anything. Made for great memories tho. :)

You will make my day if I could win a smoker. It’s on my list for x-mas. I hope that Santa will bring me one early. Thanks, Tien

I never was much of a BBQ’er. Grumpy likes his meat (steaks) much rarer than I like to cook it so I just would leave it to him, but my first time BBQ’ing chicken that was not parboiled was a super success. I learned that you don’t cook the meat on the direct heat – and that chicken was the best I ever made! Even Grumpy liked it!

I don’t think I have any terrible amazing or memorable individual barbecue (or “braai” as we call it) moments. Every man in my family thinks they are the big fire God that can make magic on a grill, but I guess that covers every man full stop! And their confidence is not shattered despite numerous occasions of my father falling asleep when he was meant to be tending to the fire, my uncle repeatedly forgetting that “fire is hot” and plunging his hand into embers for different reasons and then being surprised that it has burnt and my boyfriend, despite really disliking every other form of cooking, insisting on making fry ups on sunday mornings on our braai.

My father used to own what we called a “skottelbraai” – it was a gas-powered portable wok for want of a better description and would put together up to about his waist height and the totally smooth surface allowed him to cook things like eggs on it. There is an award scheme over here called the “Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme” which you can do at high school age and part of the three challenges is a planning and walking a hike. My father, as a marshall, would go along to camp near the place where the kids had all mutually agreed to pitch up for the night (to make sure none of them misbehaved or that any trouble occurred) and in the morning, he would set up the skottelbraai and start cooking breakfast letting the smell of eggs and bacon and smoky tomatoes cascade through the camp of hungry, grumpy kids who were only allowed to eat what they carried, and they usually only carried beans. He would end up surrounded by the hungry, hopeful, desperate faces of fifteen year olds craving bacon and seemed to take great delight in telling them no, they are not allowed his bacon as he slathered butter on toasted rolls and shoved his breakfast into it.

My first attempt at barbecue (I have since gotten quite good at it) was with a water smoker I bought at a garage sale. There was no instructions and this was back in the dark ages before there was an internet to look such things up. So we decided to wing it. And since smoking meats is such a time consuming thing, we decided to make A LOT. As much as it would hold (did I mention we were young and stupid?). Well we used too much wood which produced too much smoke. Everything came out with a thick charred layer. We ate about 2 bites and the rest got chucked out. After that we did some research before our second attempt, which worked beautifully, as have all since.

This smoker looks fantastic. I don’t know that I have a favorite BBQ story, but just about my favorite thing to come out of a smoker is the Turkey that my dad smokes on Christmas eve every year. Generally using apple wood, it is just about my favorite thing ever. I think it always add to the flavor when there was piles of snow that had to be trudged through in order to get to the smoker.

My favorite barbeque memory happened at a local horse show, of all places. The sponsors decided to smoke a whole hog overnight, and through the day of the horse show. Problem was the smoke pit was placed just outside one corner of the arena. The horses would run the course, jumping the jumps in a predetermined pattern. Every single horse, except OURS, freaked and refused that particular jump. We determined with our horse pasture adjoining a neighborhood of backyards, to Slicker it was like being home. Our daughter won with the highest points that day, and the pig tasted amazing!

EQUIPMENT: Masterbuilt Electric 40” Smoker; Two Maverick ET-732 Thermometers; Two Baking Cooling Racks; A-Maze-N-Pellet-Smoker; Wood Pellets (Mixture of Hickory and Cherry).

I set the MES40’s Temperature Control at 225*F. I drained the Corn Beef Brisket of the packaged brine mixture; Patted it dry with paper towels; Placed it on a Baking Cooling Rack (makes for easier loading and unloading); Rubbed all sides with a light dusting of Garlic and Onion Powder and Heavily Encrusted it on all sides with Fresh Course Ground Black Pepper and added the small spice packet, that comes with the brisket, to the fat cap side. I placed the rack in the smoker on the 3rdshelf from the top, with the fat cap up.

I also took a package Nettles’ Hot Smoked Sausage and laid them on a Baking Cooling Rack and placed them on the top smoker rack.

I lit the AMZNPS, as per the instructions, and put it in the smoker. I placed a foil tent on top to prevent meat drippings from putting out smoker. I was getting great Thin Blue Smoke (TBS) from cooker.

Growing up in NC, my family had yearly pig pickins’. My uncle had a huge one every year for his birthday. That’s one way to insure that you get a party – throw it yourself! These yearly bbqs were a big event, almost like a family reunion with friends and neighbors thrown in for fun. I remember him mixing up his special sauce (not sure of the exact recipe but it being eastern NC it included vinegar and red pepper). He would “wash” the pig with this special sauce. I’ve been fortunate to travel a great deal and have tasted some really good bbq but never as good as my uncle’s.

I am signed up to receive your emails. Glad I found this site. Crossing my fingers I will win an electric smoker so I can make these ribs!

I follow you and Masterbuilt on Twitter. I forgot to tell you that one of my friends that has one of these uses the smoky meat drippings to season her sauce. It is killer! I’d love to combine your recipe and hers. Your ribs and sauce look wonderful.

Rock’n Rye – Rye Whiskey, Root Liqueur and Homemade Maraschino Cherries

Send to Email Address

Your Email Address

Post was not sent - check your email addresses!