A little baby back pleasure

[Ginseng]

Since about February, we've been getting a good portion of our meats from a German master butcher at our local farmers market. Lothar Erbe is a man who knows and loves his meat. How can you not appreciate a meat man apprenticed and trained in the old ways but is innovative and masterful enough to spin up sausage creations of a fantastical nature. And he comes to market wearing his lederhosen. Gotta love the authenticity.

Anyway, he had some baby back racks that had a spice addition of his own design and I bought a rack to try. Now I don't have a dedicated smoker so I make do with my Weber Genesis. Fired up all three burners on high and loaded up my wood chip box with a well-soaked mix of 50/50 hickory/applewood. Once the smoke started to roll, center and left burners went off and the rack, cut in two, went on the warming tray above the them. The right side burner under the wood box was left on med-high, just enough to keep the smoke coming. Kept it at a steady 300-325 for about 1.5 hours, turning once and dropping some fresh wood once. When the racks were cooked through, I boosted the undermeat burners to medium to and dropped the ribs down to the main grill crust it up a bit. Flip once. After about 15 minutes we were done.

And would you believe it, they were FANtastic. My girls, who are usually a bit haphazard with their eating, each ate a couple of ribs down to the bone. I don't know what magic transpired but there was just a bit of bark (I used no sauce at all) and the membrane and parts of the cartilage tasted and crisped like it was fried. And the meat, especially the meat at the base of the rib, was juicy and succulent. So score one for Lothar and his magic meat touch!

Wilkey

[headstand]

hmmm hmmm hmmm. Drooling.

[Deemancpa]

I actually know Lothar! His Brats reminds me of the days in Germany. He use to live in Winchester. He's in Purcellville now, right? d

[Ghabanos]

Love it. Can u send over to hong kong. These cuts aren't popular so very expensive.

[Ginseng]

I actually know Lothar! His Brats reminds me of the days in Germany. He use to live in Winchester. He's in Purcellville now, right? d

Indeed he is. We're quite fortunate that the local communities were able to get this farmers market started. It really has provided us with some outstanding food. And, we get to meet and know the people who make the food, raise the animals, week after week. It really has injected a personal side to our food gathering.

Hi pork brats are excellent but my favorite are his Thai style sausage. Fantastic in tom yum soup.

GHabanos...hm, there's always dry ice packing.

Wilkey

[celtmick1984]

Looks great! Thanks for the headsup, Wilkey. I'll have to drop by the next time I'm in the Leesburg area to visit family.

[Ginseng]

Roger dodger. Here's the link to the Smart Markets site with schedule. I know Lothar is at the Gainseville market on Sundays.

Wilkey

[ckearns]

Lookin good, Wilkey! From the photo, I can only imagine what your end of season ribs will look like.

[winelover]

They look amazing Wilkey. Thanks for sharing

[mk05]

Hey Wilkey, do you brine them? I've found taking the silver skin off the back and a lime juice rub completely changes the game.

They look gd amazing btw. I'm so hungry now.

[Ginseng]

I will usually brine my chicken and pork. Beef I usually wet marinate but will occasionally dry rub. This rack, I didn't do anything except remove from Lothar's vac pac baggie. It was already a bit wet and had the spices were apparent and well distributed over the surface. I usually do not touch the silver skin on (body interior side) the ribs. Serendipitously, in this instance they provided a nice little crack and snap very similar to the natural casing on a sausage or dog.

Lime juice? Do say more! What do you find happens with lime juice? It sounds easy and I'm all about easy right now.

Wilkey