Southern food is often perceived as the quintessential American cuisine. Southerners find their identity in their cuisine with barbeque making up one of the major food groups after fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, and moonshine.

Raising hogs flourished in the South from early on. They multiplied like rabbits, were fairly low maintenance, and would be turned loose in the woods to forage for themselves ‘till it was time to catch them to butcher with the help of friends and neighbors. This is how the word “barbeque” became known as a community event and a social occasion to eat an animal nose-to-tail, which is why “Barbecue” is now both a verb, a noun for the end product of cooking, as well as the name of the actual cooking process.

Pork ribs were always considered a delicacy in the South. Actually, Ribs in general, are among the most satisfying and succulent cuts of meat with pork ribs being more popular than beef ribs. Baby-back ribs, Country-style, and Spareribs are all taken from the same ribcage of the pig but they’re not necessarily cut from the same cloth…err… they are not cut from the same ribs and differ on the specific location of the rib they’re from.

Baby Back Ribs are shorter ribs connected to the backbone, while Spare ribs (from German “rippenspeer” or spear ribs) come from the lower belly of the pig once the rest of the belly meat is cut away to make bacon, pancetta, or other cured pork products. Compared to Baby Backs, Spareribs are larger, fattier, and tougher mainly because the muscles around the bones are involved in breathing, and because they are used more often, their texture is more firm and gritty. Spareribs also have more cartilage.

Regardless of all the major and minor differences, both Baby Back Ribs and Spareribs require low and slow cooking, with Spareribs being a connoisseur’s favorite because their extra marbling yields more tender succulent meat after cooking. And this preferred meat is the same tender and succulent meat we are about to create here. Feeling excited?

Today’s cooking starts on a charcoal grill, where wood chips flavor the meat while it’s being smoked, and finishes with a 30-minute grill. The simple process is as follows. Smoke for 3 hrs, smoke for 2 more hrs and follow it up with a final grill for a tender, succulent, fall-off-the-bone showpiece. Master the basic process and then put your own spin on it, customize the ingredients and flavor profile to your liking. We are partial to our unique and tasty concoction of honey, huckleberry jam, and Bitterroot Brewery’s Huckleberry Honey Blonde Ale, available only from April to August.

Our Huckleberry Explosion recipe delivers the flavors of honey, huckleberry, and slightly spicy undertones of hops to your spareribs so you could enjoy the big bang flavor explosion of a complex universe of delightful tastes.

The mildly sweet and tart huckleberry flavor on these juicy spareribs takes you right back to the Bitterroot mountains where cattle were raised and the huckleberry patches were plucked by locals and their families.

So without further ado let us get started. Just remember cooking ribs is an art to master. To do it right takes time, practice, skills, and the proper tool kit that most definitely involves a good rub. The right rub enhances meat’s natural and nuanced flavors but never overpowers them, exactly the way Headwaters BBQ Ringing Rock Rib Rub is prepared. We highly recommend them to you. In addition to a variety of well-balanced rubs that enhance meat’s nuanced flavors, Headwater sauces are the bosses of all sauces and give your barbeque an extra edge over its Southern counterpart. I mean, you came for Montana’s flavors, right?