Baby back ribs get all the love, but over the past couple of years I have really come to enjoy buying spare ribs and separating the tips myself. It’s easy to do and saves you money versus buying St Louis cut ribs. Also, I like my ribs unsauced, but cooking the tips as well allows me to play around with different sauces to get a flavor profile I like.

So what is the difference between spare ribs and baby back ribs? Spare ribs come from the belly area, so when the belly is cut away it takes some of the meat with it. That’s why baby backs are more meaty. They come from the loin and are shorter but meatier — and thus, more expensive. Since spare ribs are from the belly area, they’re more fatty, which helps provide flavor.

You can buy St. Louis cut ribs, which are just spare ribs with the breastbone and cartilage removed, but why do that when you can easily do it yourself and cook the rib tips too? Rib tips are absolutely delicious, even if you do have to chew around the cartilage pieces.

So how do you separate them? Simply find the point where the longest bone meets the breastbone, then draw a straight line across the top of the bones to the other side. Use a slicing knife and slice across until separated. They should look like the photos below. Left are the tips and right are the St. Louis cut ribs.

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With any ribs you always want to remove the silver skin, which is on the underside of the ribs. To do this, slide a dull knife between the bone and silver skin to peel it back. With your other hand, grip it with a paper towel to help keep it from sliding away. Pull until it’s all removed.

You can do all this while your smoker is getting up to temperature. You want to cook them at 225 degrees via indirect heat. If you’re using a Big Green Egg, you want your plate setter in. I use a mix of oak and pecan, but you can also use any fruit wood or hickory for ribs.

Once you’ve separated the tips and removed the silver skin, give them a nice coating of yellow mustard and then a liberal dusting of Down With the Swine rub. Don’t have it yet? Order now! Place them into your smoker face up.

After an hour, spritz them with Cheerwine, and repeat every 30 minutes or so until they have a great reddish mahogany bark. Also spritz your rib tips.

After 2 hours, transfer your rib tips to a half foil pan and douse with BBQ sauce. I like to use a sweet Kansas City style sauce for these since there is some heat in the rub, but here’s where you can use your imagination. Cover the pan with foil and return to the smoker.

After about 3 hours, it’s time to foil your ribs. Lay out a long piece of foil on a table and transfer one rack of ribs to the foil, face up. Top with Parkay or butter, light brown sugar, and honey. Flip the rack and do the same to the underside. Now, fold the foil over the underside of the ribs, then flip the rack twice until you’ve reached the end of your foil. They should be face down again. Fold up the ends of the foil, then put back onto your smoker face down. Repeat with the other rack of ribs.

After an hour and a half, remove them from the smoker and carefully unwrap the foil. Transfer the ribs back to your smoker without the foil, this time face up. They should be pretty tender by now, so be very careful not to let them fall apart while transferring. You’re going to want to let them go for another 30-60 minutes, just enough to set the bark. All of that sticky gooey stuff you put in the foil with them will caramelize nicely on the outside.

At this same time, uncover the foil on your rib tips. At this point, I like to take them out and cut them into square-ish pieces. You’ll need a sharp knife because you’re cutting through cartilage. Put them back into the foil pan and cover with BBQ sauce, then put back into the smoker uncovered. Let go for another 30-60 minutes along with your ribs. This will allow the sauce to set on them.

Once they are ready, transfer the racks of ribs from your smoker to a cutting board and slice into individual ribs. Again, be very careful transferring so that they don’t break apart — if you care about presentation, that is. Also remove your foil pan of rib tips. They’re ready to eat as-is, but they’ll be hot so don’t dig in right away!