How to Smoke Pork Ribs

If you’re using spareribs, use a sharp boning knife to trim each rack of spareribs to a more uniform shape. Trim the end bones off to leave 10 bones remaining and square the meat on the long sides to be straighter and more even.

Preheat your pellet grill, smoker, or gas grill to 225°F (107°C) and turn on the Super Smoke feature if your grill has it. Otherwise, prepare your grill for smoking using a smoke box or pouch if necessary.

To remove the membrane, use a small piece of paper towel to help you grab the silver skin membrane on the back of each rack of ribs and pull toward you. Discard the membrane.

Generously coat the ribs on both sides with hot sauce. Sprinkle the ribs liberally with the rub all over and allow them to sweat on the counter for about 15 minutes as your grill heats up.

Place the seasoned ribs on the grill, meat side up, and cook until they reach an internal temperature of 160°F (71°C), 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

While the ribs are cooking, pour the apple juice into a spray bottle. When checking the internal temperature, check how the ribs look too. If they appear dry during this part of the cook, use the spray bottle to spritz them with some apple juice.

Prepare a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil to wrap each rack of the ribs in. On each double layer of foil, drizzle one quarter of the agave, sprinkle with one quarter of the sugar and arrange one quarter of the butter pats.

Once the ribs reach the first benchmark temperature, remove them from the grill and place them on the prepared foil, meat side down on the agave, sugar and butter. Top each rack of ribs with another quarter of the agave, sugar and butter pats, then wrap tightly in the foil. Keep the ribs meat side down in the foil wrap and then return the ribs to the grill to continue cooking.

Remove the ribs from the grill and allow them to rest for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the ribs from the foil and slice them into individual ribs. Serve with the BBQ sauce on the side.