Sticky Spareribs with Ginger-Honey Sauce

We make spareribs at least once a month. Typically, we go for the American style, but this time, we decided to mix things up with a different sweetness.

These spareribs have an Asian-inspired flavour, with ginger and sweet soy sauce. They’re different but just as delicious.

We like to keep things simple with a basic dry rub. The best part is that you can still taste the individual ingredients after smoking.

This dry rub has only five ingredients, with ginger and brown sugar being the stars. The amount of dry rub in this recipe is just enough for a solid rack of spareribs. If you’re making more, simply scale up the dry rub. It’s as easy as that.

Since we’re only smoking one rack of ribs, we’re using our kettle grill. We place some cold briquettes in one of the included trays and top them with about eight hot briquettes. The hot briquettes will gradually light the cold ones. We cover the other half of the charcoal grate with foil and place an oven tray with a layer of water on top.

Adjusting airflow through the bottom and top vents allows us to barbecue low and slow for hours. We set up the grill so that the lid in the grates above the briquettes is open, allowing us to add wood chunks for smoke. This way, we’ve turned our kettle grill into a smoker.

We’re aiming for thin, light smoke. Not that thick grey smoke you often see. This blue smoke carries plenty of flavour to give the meat a subtle smoky taste. Most of the smoke flavour actually comes from the smell, so there’s no need to overdo it.

If the smoke turns too white or grey, it means there are too many carbon particles in the air. These particles can settle on the meat, giving it an unpleasant, sooty flavour.

We achieve a light smoke by not adding too much wood to the briquettes. The smoke and gases react with the sugars in the dry rub and the fat in the meat, creating a “bark” and possibly even a smoke ring. But what we’re after is that delicious smoky flavour.

We wrap the meat once the dry rub has formed a bark. We’ve tried the foil boat technique before and loved it, so we’re using it again for these ribs.

You simply make a boat out of a double layer of aluminium foil, just big enough to fit the spareribs. Add a few pats of butter, then place the smoked ribs meat-side down on the butter.

Fold the foil tightly around the side of the ribs, but leave the top open. The meat will cook further in the butter while the exposed side continues to grill, potentially picking up a little extra smoke.

With this method, you won’t get fall-off-the-bone ribs, but they will be tender and juicy. If you want them that tender, wrap the ribs completely in foil.

Meanwhile, we make the sauce, brushing it onto the ribs during the last 10 minutes of cooking. The sauce creates a fantastic sweet and sticky glaze that everyone will love.

These are our ginger-honey spareribs. We cut them up into individual ribs before serving, making them easy to eat. You can even serve them as a snack.

Let us know if you will try these sticky ribs in the comments below. Better yet, take a picture and post it on Instagram. Tag @bbqhelden so we can see what you’ve made.