Smoked Side Ribs

The Grill Master at our house (also known as my father) cooked up another great supper recently. He made ribs again, but usually he cooks them in the slow cooker. This time, since it was a beautiful hot day, he decided to use the barbecue. He prepared his usual dry spice rub and barbecue sauce to finish the ribs, and even decided to use some flavored wood chips. He slowly smoked the ribs for about four hours. Some people insist on smoking ribs for much longer, up to eight to twelve hours, but dad did a shorter cooking time. The ribs were not quite fall off the bone and as tender as usual, but they were pretty good. I liked the crispy coating they got from the barbecue. Another issue was that my father could only get side ribs at the store, when we have always had back ribs. Back ribs are what we are used to, and we generally prefer them, but I found these side ribs pretty good as well. The ribs turned out incredibly spicy, probably because more of the rub is lost in the long process of slow cooking, so go a bit easier on the rub when grilling. Leaving the sauce until close to the end also left the ribs with a nice saucy coating. The ribs were also incredibly moist. Maybe this was because they were tented with foil and briefly allowed to rest before being cut.