Alright, the rib-periment results: I decided to take a
little bit from everyone that responded, from the web, and even some advice via
phone call. I took the pack of ribs (my test pack that was a huge tray of
rib sections that were trimmed from the regular racks), doused them pretty well
with McCormick pork rub, and let them set an hour or so. Having your
basic cheapo square shaped dome grill, I made a mound of charcoal on one side
and on the other side setup a "drip pan" made of aluminum foil.
Once the charcoal whited over, I threw the ribs on the charcoal to just
barely make a slight brown crust on it. Then I made a pouch out of
aluminum foil big enough to cover the other half of the grill surface and moved
the ribs to that pouch, threw in about a tablespoon of apple juice for good
measure and sealed it up. Above the charcoal (where I did grilling), I
put a metal pan with liquid in it (mainly water with some apple juice) and then
placed the foil rib pouch on the other side above the aluminum drip pan.
Threw a few chunks of hickory on the charcoal and put the lid down.
I tried to keep it just smoking pretty steady.
Every hour I would open the top, rotate the pouch 180 degrees, refill the
liquid, and throw on a chunk or two of hickory or few charcoal
briquettes. I did this every hour for about 3.5 hours. Then I took
the ribs out of the pouch, placed them on the side away from the charcoal, and
laid a pretty massive coating of Sweet Baby Rays on them about 20 minutes for
each side (lid down). Finally, I moved the ribs onto the side with the
charcoal (I had already taken out the liquid pan) and let them cook right over
the charcoal (lid down) for about 15 minutes on each side while coating with a
little Kraft sauce. I then took up the ribs and placed them in an oven to
stay warm for about 20 more minutes until Dawn got home.
While I have had better (although I can't quite remember where) it went pretty
well. I might consider doing the brine thing sometime because I think it
might add some additional flavor deep into the meat. I think if I hadn't
been in a hurry at the very end and had continued to let them cook indirectly
without placing them right above the coals, they would have been even
better. As it was, they would not quite make your tongue hit the roof of
your mouth hard enough to slap your brains out (