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The Melting Pot
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2010-2026 - Southern and Midwestern barbecue cooks adapting ribs to backyard grills
A backyard-style pork rib recipe with a brown-sugar spice rub, low indirect heat, apple juice, and a sticky barbecue sauce glaze.
Difficulty
Medium
Prep time
25 minutes
Cook time
3 hours 30 minutes
Total time
3 hours 55 minutes
Servings
6
Region
United States backyards and barbecue regions
Era introduced
2010-2026
Introduced by
Southern and Midwestern barbecue cooks adapting ribs to backyard grills
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Backyard ribs sit at the meeting point of regional barbecue and the suburban American grill. Barbecued ribs became a 20th-century barbecue-stand favorite as meatpacking, refrigeration, and restaurant barbecue made slabs of ribs widely available. Later, backyard grills and smokers turned ribs into a weekend ritual. This recipe keeps the approach practical: a dry rub, low indirect heat, a little moisture, and sauce set at the end so the ribs taste like a cookout even without an all-night pit.
Drafted with barbecue-rib history from Serious Eats (https://www.seriouseats.com/from-trash-to-treasure-the-history-of-barbecued-ribs), backyard rib technique from Grillseeker (https://www.grillseeker.com/how-to-make-bbq-ribs/), and rib doneness guidance from ThermoWorks (https://blog.thermoworks.com/ribs/).
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