We take English cut beef ribs, season them with SPG seasoning and then smoke them via indirect grilling on a charcoal grill. The beefies are smoked for many hours to build up a really nice bark before being wrapped in butcher paper with some beef tallow. The wrapped ribs go back on the grill until they are pillowy soft. Once the ribs are probe tender, they are put into a Cambro for a couple hours to rest to make these English Cut Smoked Beef Ribs.

English cut smoked beef ribs are simply individually cut beef plate ribs. There are two advantages for smoking English cut ribs: 1) They cook quicker than cooking an entire slab of beef ribs. 2) They have better bark than a whole slab which has no bark on the slices between the ribs.

Here are plate ribs where I cooked the entire slab (smoking them with garlic and onion in the coals). The sides where I had to carve each bone off have no bark and no seasoning:

Those were fantastic ribs. Adding garlic and onion to the coals alongside some smoke wood made for some mean beef ribs. But these English cut are better and cooked faster. It’s a higher bark to meat ratio and I’m here for it.

If you are interested in other beef rib recipes, we can help:

• Glazed and Blazed Beef Ribs
• Simple Beef Ribs
• Beef BACK Ribs
• Korean Short Ribs and Eggs for the greatest breakfast ever

English Cut Smoked Beef Ribs Ingredients

• 6 English cut beef ribs
• SPG seasoning, divided
• Peach butcher paper (substitute aluminum foil)
• Beef Tallow
• 4 Disposable aluminum pans
• A Cambro (or empty cooler)

I got these beauties at Korte Meats in Highland Illinois. If you live in or around St. Louis, or the St. Louis Metro, and are wondering if it’s worth the trip. Check out the close up here:

That’s some sexy marbling, right there!

To Pull the Membrane or Not Pull the Membrane

Removing the membrane on ribs has become a hotly contested topic. Some are removing half the membrane from pork ribs or not removing it at all. Some are leaving it on beef ribs which is a really THICK membrane. I decided to give it a shot and left the membrane on. In the recap (and the video) below you will read and see what I have to say about it. The theory is that leaving it on allows the rib meat to be held to the bone better. Since we take these beef ribs to probe tender (200F+) then that extra membrane might be needed. You can skip down to the bottom if you wish.

Prep the Beef Ribs

Carve off any big globs of fat (these had zero – thanks, Korte!) and then season with SPG (salt pepper garlic) or your favorite beef rub. These monsters have six sides – top, bottom, left right and the little ends. Coat all that liberally. These are thick so the interior meat will not have any smoke or seasoning. We need to make sure there’s enough of both on the outside to properly flavor every bite.

Pro Tip ~ Start by setting the ribs bone side up and season that side first

I’ll explain why to season bone side first below these three pics:

Don’t forget those little ends:

Here is why we season the bone side first.

Place the ribs bone side down, allowing the natural concave of the bones to hold the bottom of the ribs up off the cutting board. If you do this in reverse order, then you set the seasoned ribs meat side down, most of that seasoning is going to stick to the cutting board:

Feel free to scroll back up and check out the pics to see the concave shape of that bone and how it holds the bottom of the ribs up off the cutting board.

Prepare the Grill

I’m using my American Made Grills, Hybrid Ovation grill for this cook. It’s an all stainless beauty of a grill that can use gas, charcoal, and real wood as fuel. For this cook I will use all three:

For this cook, I put charcoal in the right two charcoal bays in the grill and lit the gas burners under that charcoal. in less than 2 minutes, my coals are starting to redden nicely and I can turn off the gas and let momentum take over.

I put an entire hickory log over the coals for the smoke and the English cut beef ribs off the edge of the direct heat so they can slowly come up to temp, while taking on that hickory smoke:

Our target temp in the grill is 250F (+/-25F):

Any grill that is not a dedicated smoker, isn’t going to have air tight chambers which makes it easier to control temps via the vents. This grill, and most other grills that are not dedicated smokers, is not air tight. Thus we will need to be flush with fuel throughout the cook to keep the temps constant. Consistent temps are our goal. With this set up, using Char Logs along with charcoal, I was able to keep the temps constant for 2-3 hours, which meant I needed to add fuel twice for this cook sesh.

Fire Management and Meat Management are Vital

We are going to see some of these beef ribs cook faster/slower than others. In other words, there will be quite a bit of moving the ribs around in addition to repositioning the hickory log for maximum smoke and adding fuel to keep the temps up. Fire and meat management will be vital here.

Here we are about 45 minutes into the cook. Our hickory log is just off the edge of the coals so it smolders rather than burns. If it burns outright, there won’t be much smoke. A smolder will produce a lot more smoke. But more importantly, look at the two ribs on the top rack. Those two are cooking faster than the four down low. This makes sense. Heat rises:

Here’s another angle of the smoked beef ribs indirect grilling at 45 minutes. The right side of the two ribs on the upper rack are browning nicely, but not the four below:

Move the beef ribs around accordingly. I took those two down from the upper rack and replaced them with the three biggest beef ribs of the six. If the upper rack is going to cook hotter, might as well place the ribs that will take the longest to cook:

At the 2 hour mark, I hit the plate ribs with a little more seasoning, as the ribs will lose a lot of seasoning when moving them about and while cooking:

The bones are starting to jut out as the fat renders out and the meat contracts:

Watch the bones. The bones know. Except they stick out a lot more from smoked beef ribs than pork ribs. If pork ribs had bones sticking out this much, we would pull them and serve. For beef ribs, you will see that they stick out way more than that.

After about 4 hours of indirect grilling, the bones are jutting out much more:

Here’s another one:

After about 5 hours, most of the bones are sticking out pretty far, but not all of them are:

We are thoroughly in the stall at 171, and our bark is set up nicely, so it’s time to wrap:

Wrap the English Cut Beef Ribs

Tear off a large sheet of the peach butcher paper. Do not use white butcher paper as it has some wax on one side. The smoked beef ribs wrapped in the paper are going back on the grill. We don’t want that wax in the cook chamber:

I’m going with three plate ribs per wrap to keep the wrapped ribs manageable:

Generally, when wrapping ribs, pork or beef, pitmasters will add some fat whether, butter, margarine, oil, lard, or my favorite, beef tallow:

I also gave it another sprinkling of seasoning:

The seasoning, plus the beef tallow, plus the fat and juices that will render out of the ribs will bathe the beef in a tasty broth of deliciousness. And being sealed in the paper pouch will ensure the beef ribs stay juicy, while it hyper accelerates the breakdown of the connective tissues which means the beef will get super tender, super fast. This will push the ribs through the stall much more quickly than cooking them unwrapped.

Fold the butcher paper up (see the video below to see how I did it) and tuck the flap under:

This part is optional. I like to place the wrapped ribs in a couple disposable aluminum pans to make it easier to move them around. The aluminum cools in a couple of seconds and makes it easier to move the ribs around. Once the fat soaks into the butcher paper, it will be really hot when you open the grill. The pans just make things easier.

People will argue that aluminum is bad for you. From what I have read, at high temps it is. North of 400F. We are only at 230F-250F. AND the ribs are not in contact with the aluminum in any way.

Repeat the wrap and tallow with the other three ribs:

And notice that a couple of those bones are sticking out a little, but this one is sticking out 2-3 times as much:

I didn’t use enough butcher paper to have enough paper to tuck under so I had to flip the ribs over to keep the paper from unfolding:

These went back on the grill for right about 2 hours. So before I closed the lid on the wrapped ribs, I added a little more fuel and dumped the smoke wood. The ribs are not taking on any more smoke. In fact, if you want, you finish these in the oven if you wish.

When I checked the temps of these beef ribs, I poked the probe thermometer right through the butcher paper into the meat. The target temp is 200F-205F. But I didn’t wait for the temp to read on my thermometer. I noticed the probe went in and out with no resistance. Basically, like butter. That’s all I needed to know. The beef ribs were probe tender. So they went into the Cambro for an hour to rest. Two hours would’ve been better, but it was late and my camera man is 13.

After the rest in the Cambro, here’s one of the probe tender ribs:

Here is a close up of that bone and some of that meat sliced. You can see the membrane I left on the bone as well:

English Cut Smoked Beef Ribs Recap

First of all, these were absolutely amazing. So rich and luxurious. I couldn’t do more than one bone of these as they are truly over the top. The wow factor is nuts here both in terms of the visuals and the flavor. That membrane was edible, but a little chewy. I don’t think leaving it on really helps much. Most of the beef ribs had the membrane detach on one side or the other. But one it stayed attached on both sides and had to be yanked off which sent rendered fat everywhere. They weren’t bad ribs because the membrane was on. I just don’t see the advantage.

That all being said, if you really want to impress someone or celebrate a momentous event, beef ribs will do the trick nicely.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

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Recipe Card

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English Cut Smoked Beef Ribs

Individual beef plate ribs, rubbed w/ SPG and smoked indirect on a charcoal grill then wrapped in butcher paper and tallow to make English Cut Smoked Beef Ribs

Course Beef Ribs, Entree, Finger Food, Main Course, Ribs

Cuisine American, American Fare, Barbecue, BBQ, Beef, Finger Food, North American

Keyword Beef Plate Ribs, Beef Ribs, Beef Tallow, Butcher Paper, Cambro, Charcoal Grill, English Cut, English Cut Smoked Beef Ribs, Hickory, Hickory Smoke, Hickory Wood, Indirect Cooking, Indirect Grilled, Indirect Grilling, Individual Beef Ribs, Peach Butcher Paper, Plate Ribs, Smoke Wood, Smoked Beef Ribs, SPG, SPG Rub, SPG Seasoning, Tallow, Two Zone Grilling

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 7 hours hours

Resting Time 1 hour hour

Equipment

• Peach butcher paper Substitute aluminum foil
• 4 disposable aluminum pans
• 1 Cambro Or empty cooler

Ingredients

• 6 English cut beef ribs
• SPG seasoning Salt pepper garlic
• 6 Tablespoons Beef tallow

Instructions

• Remove the membrane from the bone side of the ribs (optional) and season them all the way around with the SPG rub. Make sure to start bone side up and finish meat side up so the concave shape of the bone keeps the seasoning up off the cutting board
  
  
  
• Set up the grill for two zone grilling with coals and smoke wood on one side and the beef ribs on the other. Target temperature inside the grill is 250F (+/-25F). Close the lid and allow the ribs to take on the smoke and heat.
  
  
  
• Every hour, rearrange the ribs to get even cooking and make sure the wood is producing smoke. Also, add more fuel if the temp starts to drop. Feel free to reapply some seasoning after a couple of hours.
  
  
  
• Once the beef ribs hit the stall, somewhere between 160F-180F internal, move 3 of them to a large sheet of peach butcher paper (substitute aluminum foil). I did this about the 5 hour mark. There is no magic temperature here. Make sure the bark is looking good and the ribs are in the stall range, then wrap in the paper or foil. 3 tablespoons of beef tallow and a little extra seasoning go on the ribs before folding up the paper into a tight package. Set the wrapped ribs in a double layer of disposable aluminum pans. Place the wrapped ribs back on the grill and repeat with the other three ribs.
  
  
  
• Once the ribs reach 200F-205F or are probe tender, remove from the grill and place in a Cambro or empty cooler for at least an hour. Two would be better.
  
  
  
• Remove the ribs from the Cambro and serve a beef rib to everyone, or pull the meat from the bones and carve into chunks to make the beef go farther.
  
  
  

And some bonus pics of the process:

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