Apple-Maple Brined Ribs

Okay, I admit it. This is not a spontaneous recipe, it takes forever!
Quite
simple, though, and these ribs taste wonderful with no other seasoning at
all.
This recipe is for a half-slab, so feel free to double it.

1/2 cup (100 grams) salt
7 cups (1.7 liters) hot water
2 cups (480 milliliters) cider vinegar
1/2 cup (120 milliliters) Splenda
1/2 cup (120 milliliters) sugar-free pancake syrup
1/2 tablespoon cracked black pepper
1/2 slab pork spare ribs, about 4 pounds (2 kilograms)

Dissolve the salt in the hot water, then stir in everything else but the
ribs. Put your ribs in something shallow, flat and made of a nonreactive
material-you may want to cut your slab into a few pieces to fit it in.
Pour the brine over the ribs, making sure they're submerged by at least a
little bit. Stash them in the fridge and let them sit for 3-4 hours. Six
hours before you want to eat your brined ribs, start your grill for
indirect cooking-build a charcoal fire to one side, or light only one
burner of your gas grill. Pull your ribs out of the brine and pat them
dry. Reserve 1/2 cup of the brine, discard the rest. Rub the surface of
the ribs with a little oil. When your fire is ready, put the ribs over the
side of the grill not over the fire, and to add soaked wood chips to the
fire-apple wood would be especially appropriate, but I've used other chips
and gotten good results. Smoke the ribs according to the directions in
chapter 1, for a good 6 hours, adding wood chips whenever the smoke dies
down. What do you do with that 1/2 cup reserved brine? Mix it with 1/2 cup
oil and use it to baste the ribs while they're smoking, every time you add
more chips or chunks. You can add other seasonings or a sauce to these if
you like, but I like them with just salt and pepper. The brine/mop adds a
lovely flavor of its own and makes these ribs wonderfully juicy!

5-6 servings

If you drank the brine, you'd get a substantial quantity of carbohydrate-7
or 8 grams-but you discard most of the brine, of course. Count 1 to 2
grams per serving, and that's a generous estimate! 32 grams of protein.

Dana Carpender = recipes from her new cookbook. The Low-Carb Barbecue Book

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