Ribs on a gas grill?

[cool hand luke]

To me ribs on a gas grill sounds like heresy. I admit that I've never tried but it just seems so wrong.

So I was all set to use my offset smoker tomorrow to do a mess of St. Louis ribs. But then life happened and I'm not going to have the time to babysit the offset smoker. I'm contemplating whether I should try them on the lower maintenance gas grill or just save them till I have time do to them on the offset. I have one of the smoke ticks that you put wood pellets in that can add some smoke, but will this be able to add enough smoke to make good ribs? any tips to making gas grill ribs turn out well?

[Pirate Scott]

I have a Co worker that does them all the time on a Weber Gasser, he swears by it. You could do them in the Oven too, just won’t have Smoke.

[bten]

It can work, but make sure you have a pan of water in there. While the flavor was good, I found them dry and stringy on the outside. I think a good rub with plenty of sugar to seal in the juices. Again cook them indirect. See my Avitar....

[Potkettleblack]

Last meal ribs from the site and Meathead’s has grill setup.

100% of the time it works every time.

"To me ribs on a gas grill sounds like heresy. I admit that I've never tried but it just seems so wrong."
You’ll never know until you try. You might like it better.

[snowswamp]

I cook ribs on my Weber. It’s tricky because at the low temperatures stated in the recipes, the wind blows out the grill. I’m not a competitive cook. My family and friends say they love them although they could just be acting nice since I know my pies are awesome. 😀

[jfmorris]

At one point, all I had was a 2002 Weber Genesis Silver A gas grill, and a offset my dad built back in the 80's. I've cooked tons of ribs on the gas grill, and to be honest, the only smoke they had was from grease hitting the flavorizer bars. Just turn off the burners that you can to get a low indirect setup, and follow Potkettleblack advice.

My issue with the old Weber 2 burner gas grill is that the burner tubes run from left to right, meaning if you do a 2 zone setup, you have just the front or just the back. My solution was to make a heat shield out of aluminum foil that I would set under the grate, on top of the flavorizer bars, to sorta force all the heat from the one burner that was on up and around the edges of the grill. Worked fine. The newer Weber gas grills and most other brands have front to back burners and its much easier to setup a 2 zone setup with them.

[PJBowmaster]

I've made great ribs on my Weber Gasser. Wind and cold are always tricky. And it won't hold a lot of meat. Maybe a couple of slabs without a rib rack. I put wood chips in a small foil loaf pan directly on the flavorizer bar above the burner. Plenty of smoke and great flavor. Caution: Ribs always seem to take longer on the grill. Probably due to heat loss....

[Mosca]

I did ribs on my gasser for years. I didn’t use a water pan, I just set one burner on and the others off. They were always great. Different, but great. I mean, they’re ribs. They’re great in a crock pot.

[Troutman]

Here’s a trick to try. I bake them in the oven at 220* (I have a Jenn-Aire convection model) for 2 hours. Finish them on your gasser ( mine is a Weber Summit with a smoking tray). I usually throttle up two of my five burners and go hot keeping a grate probe monitoring the cool side with the ribs. Not quite the same as smoked but not to bad at all.