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Our Finished Smoked Beef Riblets with Soy Hoisin marinade!

Smoked Beef Riblets with Soy-hoisin marinade Click To Tweet

One of my favorite cuts of beef to smoke and grill is the beef flank riblet. This is a cut of beef short rib known as flanken. In the flanken style of short rib, this thin cut, which is about 1/2-inch thick, goes across the bones so that each slice contains a few pieces of bone rather than between the bones as is done in traditional short ribs.

This is a popular way to cut the short ribs if you’re going for a Korean barbecue which we are kind of doing with our marinade that has Asian influences. I recommend doing about 4 pounds of flanken style short rib though today I’m doing 8 lbs. which means I’m doubling the recipe. The best part is these ribs don’t take very long to smoke on the grill.

I use a two-zone cooking method that allows this to be a low stress smoking method. Ask your butcher for a beef flanken rib cut and let’s fire up the grill or smoker for our version of soy and hoisin marinated beef riblets.

It’s All About the Marinade

What I like about these ribs is the butcher does all the work. They come ready to be marinated – no additional trimming to get them the same size as a good butcher will already know to do that for even cooking time.

#Marinade

To make these flanken ribs taste super tender and flavorful, we need to make a marinade that will stay on the ribs for 24 hours.

First, I ready freezer storage bags for the marinating, placing roughly 8 ribs per bag. You want the marinade to get all around the ribs. For the marinade combine:

• 3/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tablespoon peeled, minced fresh ginger root
• 1/2 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon onion powder

Pour equal amounts of the marinade into each storage bag, expel the extra air from the bags, seal, and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Tasting Notes: This is a basic marinade that has Asian flavors. It is not spicy so if you do want a bit more heat, think about adding an Asian garlic-chili sauce. Just reduce the minced garlic to 1 tablespoon and add 2 tablespoons of garlic-chili sauce or an amount to heat level you want.

Two-Zone Grill Smoking

When you set up a grill or smoker with a two-zone cooking method, you can assure that foods won’t get too smoky or dry out. While preparing the riblets on the cooking racks, I pre-heat the grill to 350°F by turning on only half the burners. On those burners, I place a smoker box with oak single filet wood chunks directly on the burner shields.

#twozonecooking

I’m going to use a sheet pan set with roasting racks for the rib cooking as these ribs will have a lot of juice from the marinade that I don’t want leaching into the grill area. This is a way to avoid have lots of grease in the drip catch and grease collection unit of your grill.

I place the ribs on the unlit side of the grill and close the lid. I’ll let these go about 12 minutes before flipping over. Another 8-10 minutes and these are done. Replenish the wood chunks as needed to keep the smoke flavor going. I’m doing 8 lbs. of ribs so this will be about 5 cooking rotations total.

Tasting Notes: You certainly can cook these directly on the grill grates if you don’t mind a bit of clean up to the grates when your done and the need to empty the dripping collection pan. Also, charcoal grilling of these ribs is just easy by using the two-zone cooking set up on that grill as well.

Ready in a Flash-Smoked Beef Riblets!

You can gauge the cooking time by looking for browning on the outside of the ribs. When one side has browned, turn over and allow the other side to color. Remove the finished ribs to a platter and add some chopped fresh green onion and white sesame seeds. These are ready to go!

#beefriblets

If needed to make ahead of time, simply reheat the ribs in a low temperature oven – I like 275°F – in a foil covered pan but add the onion and sesame seeds only when ready to serve. Whether for summer entertaining, party planning, hors d’oeuvre party, or just to bring back the flavors of outdoor cooking, this is the perfect rib done in a flash!

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SmokinLicious® products used in this recipe:

Wood Chunks- Single Filet

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Dr. Smoke- These smoked beef Riblets are a perfect party favorite