Slow Cooker Ginger Beer Barbecue Baby Back Ribs & Brisket

The title of this post which contains the words Slow Cooker and Barbecue is about as close to blasphemy as one can get for us BBQers, but when I saw the recipe from Dennis on his “Ask Chef Dennis” blog, I decided to give it a try with a little twist – a little smoke first.  For the original recipe and some great how-to pics, click on the above link.

Slow Cooker Ginger Beer Barbecue Baby Back Ribs – Adapted from Ask Chef Dennis

Ingredients:

1 rack baby back pork ribs cut in two pieces

2 cups barbecue sauce I used Sweet Baby Rays

12 ounces ginger beer

1 tbsp Montreal steak seasoning for ribs

2 oranges leave the peel on cut into pieces

Instructions:

1. Rinse the rack of ribs under cold running water, remove the membrane and trim off any loose flaps of meat.

Cut the rack in half, lightly season both sides of the ribs with Montreal seasoning, and allow them to come to room temperature.

2. I actually forgot and used my normal rib rub.

*Be careful too much seasoning will make these very peppery.

3. Smoke at 250F for two hours and remove from the smoker (I did this the day before because I was cooking a brisket).

4. Add the barbecue sauce, ginger beer, and cut oranges.

5. Cover the slow cooker, turn it on high setting, and cook for 4 hours.  I put them on at 12:30pm and rotated them top to bottom half way through cooking.

6. When the ribs are done to your liking, turn off the slow cooker, remove the cooking liquids, and add them to a saucepan remove the ribs and cut them into two-bone servings.

Place the saucepan over medium-high heat to allow the sauce to reduce, until thick and bubbly (about 10 minutes).

6. Dunk them back into the sauce and serve.

In addition to the ribs for our Friday group, we also served some brisket that I had smoked the previous day.  It started at 13½ pounds and weighed 8½ pounds after close trimming.  Since one end was much thinner, I cut it in half for cooking.

I didn’t get any cooked shots but this is after slicing and reheating in its juice for this meal.

To round out the meal, we had Bev’s made-like-my-moms potato salad and cucumber salad.

My plate.

And we finished off the evening later with fresh sliced peaches and ice cream.

The Verdict:

Everything was a big hit and the beef lovers raved about the brisket which was tasty, moist, and tender.  I thought the ginger beer sauce was very good on the ribs which were tender and pulled cleanly off the bones – a sign they are properly cooked according to the pros.  I had never had Ginger Beer so I tried a little and it tasted somewhat like ginger ale with a little cayenne in it.  This was my first brisket on the Masterbuilt Smoker and I still have a little to learn about how it cooks.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

07/15/22 event date