321 Ribs
On February 14, 2023 (Updated September 27, 2024)
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321 ribs are a foolproof way to get fall-off-the-bone ribs. The 321 rib method is based on smoking the ribs for 3 hours, wrapping them with liquid for 2 hours, and saucing them for the final 1 hour.
What is the 321 Method for Ribs?
Smoking ribs using the 321 method is one of the most popular ways for a backyard enthusiast to cook ribs. They result in a truly delectable, fall-off-the-bone rib. While many “BBQ purists” will balk at the 321 method, there’s no denying that this meat is juicy, tender, and delicious. So, if you or your guests like meat that comes clean off the bone with every bite, definitely give the 321 rib method a try!
So what is the 321 method for ribs, exactly? It’s an easy way to cook pork ribs! In a nutshell, the 321 method for ribs is just what the name suggests:
- 3 hours in the smoker. Start by placing your ribs directly on the grill grates of the smoker for 3 hours to infuse the meat with that good, smoky flavor.
- 2 hours wrapped. Next up, wrap those smoky ribs in foil (usually with brown sugar, apple cider, butter, and other goodies) for 2 hours to add more flavor and keep that rib meat juicy.
- 1 hour with sauce. Last up, remove the meat from the wrapping and smother them in BBQ sauce. Finish them on the grill for 1 hour to set the sauce and ensure that the meat falls right off the bone.
321 Rib Method
This 321 rib method has gained a lot of popularity with home cooks in recent years because of the flawless results in churning out super tender ribs that fall off the bone every time.
While competition and traditional BBQ cooks will scoff at fall-off-the-bone ribs, the truth is that most people really like them that way. Judges for KCBS won’t give you a winning score, but they also won’t be hanging out in your backyard critiquing what you and your family are eating. So I say, cook what you like!
Sticky, sweet, tender, and oh-so-savory, 3 2 1 ribs are probably the most requested meal I receive for potlucks or family dinners. I tend to fall back on these ribs for gatherings because I know that they will deliver that tender, flavorful porky flavor every time. And sometimes consistency is super important!
One final tip: I highly recommend reading my post on How to Know When Pork Ribs are Done. This will help you determine when to remove the ribs from the smoker in addition to the times suggested.
Ingredients for 321 Ribs
Here’s what you’ll need to make these ribs:
- 1 rack of baby back ribs
- 2 Tablespoons Hey Grill Hey Sweet Rub or Rib Rub
- 1 cup apple cider (or apple juice)
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 3 Tablespoons salted butter
- 1/2 cup Everything BBQ Sauce (or your favorite BBQ sauce)
My Sweet Rub, Rib Rub, and Everything BBQ Sauce can all be purchased from the Hey Grill Hey Store. If you don’t have any on hand when you go to make this recipe, you can make Sweet Rub using my recipe for Best Sweet Rub, Rib Rub using my recipe Best Dry Rub for Ribs, and Everything Sauce using my recipe for Kansas City BBQ Sauce.
How to Smoke 321 Ribs
I firmly believe that you should cook food the way you like it, and ribs are no different! Do you like your ribs saucy? Put some extra sauce on them (I like using my Everything BBQ Sauce). Do you like your ribs falling off the bone? Follow this 321 rib method! These are your ribs after all. Make them exactly how you like them!
Here’s how to cook your ribs using the 321 method:
- Preheat. Fire up the grill and preheat to 180-200 degrees F. Prepare the ribs for smoking while the grill preheats.
- Prep the ribs. Using a paper towel, grip the corner of the membrane on the back of the ribs, and pull to remove it. Next, season both sides of the ribs liberally with Sweet Rub or Rib Rub.
- Smoke for 3 hours. Start with exposing the seasoned ribs to 3 hours of heavy smoke over low heat. I prefer fruit woods (apple or cherry) when smoking pork, but other hardwoods (hickory and alder) also work really well with ribs.
- Wrap for 2 hours. After the initial 3-hour smoke, foil the ribs with a liquid of your choosing (I used apple cider, dark brown sugar, and butter) and cook at 225-250 degrees F for 2 more hours. After the braising period, Iook for great retraction of the meat from the bones. You want the bones to be exposed on the end at least 1/4 to 1/2 an inch.
- Sauce and smoke for 1 hour. Lastly, baste the ribs in your favorite BBQ sauce (my Everything BBQ Sauce or Apple Jalapeno BBQ Sauce are delicious!) and return them to the grill for a final hour to finish the ribs and set the sauce.
- Rest and enjoy. Remove the ribs from the smoker and rest for 10-15 minutes. Slice into individual ribs and serve! I like to put extra sauce on the table for guests who enjoy their ribs extra saucy.
More Ribs Recipes
Are you a rib fan like me? Then you’ll absolutely love these other rib recipes on Hey Grill Hey:
321 Rib Recipe
Follow the recipe, and let’s make some really good food! Hey Grill Hey is here to help you make better BBQ, feed the people you love, and become a BBQ hero. Head on over to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube! for more behind-the-scenes action!
This post was originally published in April 2015. We recently updated it with more information and helpful tips. The recipe remains the same.
321 Ribs
Video
Equipment
- 1 Smoker I highly recommend this pellet grill!
Ingredients
- 1 rack baby back ribs
- 2 Tablespoons Hey Grill Hey Sweet Rub recipe in notes section
- 1 cup apple cider apple juice also works
- ¼ cup dark brown sugar
- 3 Tablespoons salted butter
- ½ cup Everything BBQ sauce recipe in notes section
Instructions
- Preheat. Prepare your smoker by preheating it to 180 degrees F.
- Prep the ribs. Use a sharp knife to lift up the corner of the membrane on the back of the ribs. Using a paper towel, grip the membrane and pull firmly to fully remove the membrane. Trim any excess fat off the ribs as needed.
- Season. Liberally season both sides of the ribs using Hey Grill Hey Sweet Rub, starting with the bone side.
- Smoke. Place the seasoned ribs on the smoker and close the lid. Leave them to smoke for 3 hours (The ribs should be somewhere around an internal temperature of 165 degrees F at the end of these 3 hours).
- Make the braise. Tear off a large piece of aluminum foil and place it on a large working surface. Transfer the ribs to the foil bone side up so the bones don't tear through the foil. Sprinkle the ribs with the brown sugar, top with the butter cut into small pads, and then pour in the apple cider. Tightly crimp the foil together to create an airtight seal.
- Continue smoking. Return the wrapped ribs to the grill and increase the temperature in the smoker to 225 degrees F. Let the ribs braise for 2 hours in the foil.
- Sauce. Carefully remove the ribs from the grill and place them on a large working surface. Open the foil package (be careful of hot steam) and use tongs to remove the ribs and place them back on the grill, bone side down. Discard the foil and excess cooking liquid. Next, brush the ribs with Everything BBQ Sauce (or your favorite BBQ sauce).
- Finish smoking. Return the unwrapped, sauced ribs to the smoker. Close the lid, and continue smoking for an hour (or less!) or until the ribs reach around 200 degrees F and the sauce is sticky and set.
- Rest, slice, and enjoy. Remove the ribs from the smoker and rest for 10-15 minutes. Slice into individual ribs, and serve with extra sauce, as desired.
Notes
- Purchase it from the store HERE: Sweet Rub
- Make it from scratch using this RECIPE: Best Sweet Rub Recipe
Everything BBQ Sauce
- Purchase it from the store HERE: Everything BBQ Sauce
- Make it from scratch using this similar RECIPE: Kansas City BBQ Sauce
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Great recipe as always, I just pulled mine off the smoker and look and taste awesome. Biggest problem with some of the low star reviews is temperature. I use a pit boss pellet, chamber temp is within 5 degrees but factory meat probe is of by 20. I recommend using independent thermometers and double check. I forgot the butter , but turned out awesome
Hi Jason. I concur, my Traeger built in thermometer is off by 20 degrees as well. I started using my Thermopro and have much better results.
Followed recipe to a tee but still were too tough. Flavor was very good. Should I cook longer? Hotter? Not sure why they were not fall off the bone.
Make sure your foil is super tight without holes, I find it easier to use a foil pan and covering the foil pan. If you use apple juice or apple cider and let it sit in that steam for 2 hours, they should turn out good. Low and slow is always the best method, the last hour I usually raise the temp and then let them rest for 10-15 mins before serving.
What if I dont have Apple cider or Juice, is there some other liquid you would recommend?
Using our Green Mountain pellet smoker and follow this recipe…every time PERFECT fall off the bone ribs!!! Love love this method!
Awesome recipe. Best ribs ever
This was my first time doing ribs. I did 3 racks on my small Traeger with apple pellets. Everything was going great until the last hour. The ribs came out of the foil tender and falling off the bone. I put them back on the smoker, brushed on the sauce and set timer for 1 hr. They ended up dry and kinda burnt. Probably only needed 10 min to set sauce. My smoker must run hotter than the temp control. Next time I will watch them closer. They still had good flavor, just needed to find the more meaty ones! Until next time!
I have a pit boss, and I run into a temp issue too. I am unable to get the temp as low as they are suggesting, so I have to adjust my times a bit. I haven’t had them come out dry really, but a bit of burn/char around the bone ends.
For the first three hours on my pitboss I have to turn it on the smoke setting but if I notice the temp getting way lower I’ll switch it back up to 200..I don’t know why these things sway in temperature by 100 degrees
Do you clean the temperature probe? In my Pitboss, it’s a short rod (about 1 inch) that sticks straight up back behind the water pan. I wipe it off with a wet paper towel at the start of every session. My cabinet temps seem to be much more stable and accurate since doing that.
Make sure you keep the temp probe clean. Wipe it down with a wet paper towel. In my Pit Boss, the 1” temp probe is in the back of the cabinet, behind the water pan. They work best when they are clean. It’s probably the same reason most built-in thermometers don’t work as well as portable thermometers.
I’m new at smoking ribs. I’ve cooked ribs the past 3 weekends. The first week went well, but not fall off the bone. The 2nd week was better, but still not as tender as I wanted them to be, but they tasted great!! This past weekend I went from smoking 2 racks of ribs on 1 grate, to smoking 5 on 3 racks, 2-2-1. I followed the recipe to a T. but they turned out kinda tough, and didn’t seem like they were fully cooked? These were baby back ribs, though not all of them were the same thickness. I used 3-2-1, with apple juice as the liquid for the 2. I’m open for suggestions on this one, please!
I smoked 3 racks on 1 grate on Sunday, I used the 3-2-1 method and my temperature was between 225 and 250. They came out perfect. I had briquettes on one side only so I rotated the grate every once in a while. Maybe increasing your temperature might help?
The Apple cider vinegar will change this whole experience for you. I have made this recipe no changes 3 times now but with the vinegar option and not the juice. I can barely get them off the smoker without falling apart in 10 chunks
I’ve used this recipe several times and it’s always come out great. I’m wondering about thermometer placement, though. This last time I used a probe thermometer resting on a block of wood on the grill surface. I used briquets this time instead of lump charcoal to give me a steadier burn and was able to maintain proper temp to within a few degrees throughout the entire process.. Even though the meat was tender, it was not quite the fall-off-the -bone quality that I’ve had on previous smokes. This makes me wonder where your thermometer is in relation to the grill surface. If it’s up on the lid like most grills, would that read a few degrees cooler than where the meat is? I thought that putting the thermometer down by the meat would give me a more accurate reading, but should I adjust my cooking temp slightly if it’s going to read warmer down there?
Built in grill thermometers are notoriously bad. Use the probe you put at grate level to make sure you’re cooking at the temp you need to be!
Second time I have used this with baby back ribs. Fall off the bone, delicious!
I’ve done the 3,2,1 method before but after listening to your video I know what I did wrong. My ribs came out amazing. I know for next time more sauce. My family loves more saucy ribs
These turned out great using the pit barrel smoker. Cooking time we less (as I anticipated). The recipe was great. A little spicier then I expected (and I like spicy). I think it had to have been the cayenne in the run even though there wasn’t really a that much.