re: RibOff 2024 Edition (photo submission thread)

Soundtrack:

(hang on to the end, they do a fakeout ending, then jam)




The morning started with my wife making dill potato salad from scratch, which was finished before I even got out of bed, so no pics of that process. It's potato salad with dill and red onion.An excellent compliment to rich meat like smoked ribs.

When I finally did get out of bed, I got the St. Louis ribs from Striplings (technically Bogart, but I call it Watkinsville, I'll defer to LSUhobnailboot) all trimmed out, lots of bullshite to cut off a rack of St Louis cut, and got the hickory rolling on it. Two more Baby Backs were on the way with my father.

As explained last year, on a Weber Spirit, you simply turn one of the heat guards on its side and place your hickory chunks on there and they smoke fine. I moved from chips to chunks last year because the chips burn up too fast and require more lid opening. In the words of Pegleg Pete, famous BBQ guy in West TN, "lookin ain't cookin". It's his dry rub recipe I'm using.


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Apple juice and Mrs Bragg's Apple Cider vinegar for the mop.




Despite the air temp, I was able to keep it nice and cool. The ribs are not over the burner, only the wood is over the burner. A nice slow rolling hickory smoke for 3 hours.



This is after hour 1 for the first mop and hickory resupply.





The tater salad:





The finished St Louis cut with the Johnny Vergos memphis Rendevouz rub.






Granddaddy finally showed up with his two baby backs. He spent some time with his grandson teaching him how to strip the membrane and apply the rub. I forget the rub he brought with him, it was just something from the grocery store, nothing special. Just a run of the mill generic BBQ rub.

Granddaddy's cardiologist told him he can only eat ribs on federal holidays, so this is a big deal for granddaddy. I allow granddaddy to make them however he likes them, with my assistance. His preferred method will make many of you purists scoff, as I would too. He likes bypassing the grill altogether and wrapping them in the oven. I would not allow this. I insisted on at least one hour on the grill to get some real hickory smoke on them. He complied.

Also pictured are all the sauce options I gave him. He chose one rack with all Sweet Baby Rays, and the other rack was half Carolina Gold and half Stubbs Sweet Heat.




Trimmed and rubbed, ready for smoke:



Barely fit on the Weber Spirit.



Hickory down below.



Sauce choices:





Mama and the child hobnobbing with culdesac neighbors. All the tents had come down at this point as the sun fell behind the trees.






My outfit:

Aftco shorts
Costa flip flops
Eagle/Lightning T-shirt





The guy across the street in yellow house dropped $150 on artillery, I still had about $150 worth leftover from last year. Combined, we put on a nice show.






This is the only finished pic of the baby backs. They were devoured too quickly for any better pics. This is the sweet baby ray's one.




We also managed to get some hot dogs and corn on the grill.








My plate, before and after. I sprinkled some of the Rendezvous on the corn, highly recommend.






The board does not allow enough characters for me to include the entire text of the Declaration of Independence so here is a link to the direct text at archive dot gov.

Declaration of Independence

I live in Gwinnett, named after Button Gwinnett, one of Georgia's signers of the document. This was one of the civics lessons the grand child learned on Independence Day during all the festivities. These things aren't taught in schools, you gotta teach this stuff yourself yall.



Also also- the only dessert was the lady next door handing out popsicles to all the kids in the neighborhood. My kid ate 3.