I've never been a big rib fan - until a friend (who's a much better cook than me) taught me how to do baby back ribs. Today I made a marinade that is just fantastic! I can't wait to taste them!
Now the story behind this marinade is that I have a sweet stout that I made that's OK, but not fantastic. I've drank all but about 10 bottles of it, so it's plenty drinkable. However, it's just not fantastic, there's a slight off burnt flavor that I suspect is from slightly scorching the wort during boiling (I'm doing this on an electric stove between two burners, at least till January that is, so control is difficult). Anyway, this slightly burnt sweet stout makes a great cooking beer for barbeque!
BTW I rarely measure anything in the kitchen.
marinade:
1 bottle beer of your choosing
1 bottle barbeque sauce of your choosing (I used a simple brown sugar BBQ sauce)
a decent amount of brown sugar (3-4 TBSP if you must measure)
a decent amount of dark molasses (2 TBSP if you must measure)
a good amount of your favorite hot sauce to taste (more for spicy, less for mild)
a good amount of your choice of mustard (gives it twang)
half an onion, chopped up fine
garlic to taste (I chopped up a few cloves)
Spices to taste*
Mix it up and save about 1/3 of it for the end.
Remove the membrane from the back of your rack of baby back ribs. Use a knife and start from the middle. Once you get it cut and peeled back a little, it should pull off in one large piece on each side of the ribs.
Marinate the meat in a flat pan with the rest of the sauce for about two or more hours, covered with foil. Make sure both sides are covered. You can use a rub or pre-spice the meat if you so choose.
After marination, place covered pan in oven at 275-300F for two hours or so, depending how big the rack is. It will basically be done and falling off the bone when you remove it, as it slowly steams and boils in the marinade.
After it comes out of the oven, place ribs on barbeque grill and baste with remaining sauce. The sugar makes it caramelize and gives it a nice glaze. Make sure to BBQ and baste both sides. You're only doing this to get a good BBQ glaze on the ribs, they should already be fully cooked.
You can broil instead of grill. There are also other methods of pre-cooking the ribs too, many of which will work just fine too, but I like this way best.
The hardest part is deciding what beer to serve while you're preparing the food.
![Cool 8)](http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/Smileys/default/cool.gif)
* I used a little Mexican carne asada seasoning, a little spicy pepper mix from McCormick, and some McCormick mesquite mix