Set up your grill for two zone cooking and using a reliable leave-in thermometer, maintain a cooker temperature of 255° F.
Trim spare ribs to clean up any edges and remove any hanging pieces of meat. Try to get them into a uniform shape. You’ll often notice a somewhat loose piece of meat on the back of the ribs. Trim that off. Remove the membrane on the back of the ribs. Simply grab a corner of the membrane with a paper towel and peel it off. Depending on where the ribs were fabricated, they will require a different amount of trimming. Save any edible meat and fat that you trim off, they’re a great addition to BBQ baked beans.
Pour bbq dry rub into a shaker bottle and season ribs starting with the bone side, then flip them and do the meat side.
Place one hickory and one applewood chunk onto hot coals, then place your ribs over indirect heat and allow them to take a smoke bath for 2 to 2.5 hours.
Pull the ribs off the grill and close the lid. Adjust the vents on your grill in order to increase grill temperature to 285° F. While your grill is heating up, place each rack on a double layer of aluminum foil and top with a generous amount of warm sauce. Notice the difference in color for each sauce. Wrap the foil tightly around the ribs and mark with a sharpie so you know which rack has which sauce. Return to the grill for 1 hour.
Remove the ribs from the grill, close the lid, and adjust vents to increase temperature to 325° F. Unwrap the ribs and check the internal temperature of the meat with a reliable meat thermometer. It should read about 195° F. You’ll notice now the bones for each rack are very prominent.
Glaze each rack with an even layer of sauce and return to the grill for 10-12 minutes. This allows the sauce to “set” and become very tacky.
One of the things I like best about traditional American BBQ is the different flavor profiles that can be found in various regions. For example, though St. Louis and Kansas City are only about 250 miles apart, the flavor profiles found in each city are different. Even if you’re new to the world of BBQ, you’re probably still familiar with what is arguably the most common type of BBQ sauce: Kansas City BBQ sauce. It’s thick, sweet, and deep mahogany in color. Their neighbors to the east, however, put a bit of a tangy spin on that style of sauce giving it a different profile altogether