I tried smoking pork short ribs using the “professional” 3-2-1 Hours Method yesterday and they really came out outstandingly great! So what does that mean? It means you have three stages of cooking:

Preliminaries:

Trim your rib racks, remove the silver skin from the back and rub them thoroughly with your favourite barbecue rub. Preheat your smoker to about 100 – 110 °C.

First three hours:

Smoke your ribs at low heat 100-110 °C (210-230 °F). After the first 90 minutes, spray the racks with a 1:1 mixture of apple cider vinegar and apple juice every 20-30 minutes. Try to minize the open time of your smoker lid. In this time you can periodically add soaked smoking-wood chips to your coals for 1-3 times for a smoky flavour.

Second two hours:

Cook at low heat, wrapped in foil: Wrap your racks tightly in aluminium foil, adding a good amount of spray and – if you like – a small knob of butter. This combines steaming and cooking in one step and it will add a ton of flavour and a whole lot of softness to your ribs.

Third hour:

Cook and glaze. Unwrap the racks and glaze with a thin layer of your favourite barbecue sauce. Do this two to three times before serving warm.

Summary: It’s really some effort, but the taste, consistency and yummyness are absolutely worth the wait.