Country Style Ribs on a Pellet Grill {Fast Recipe For Your Pit Boss, Z Grills or Traeger!}

Smoking country style ribs on a pellet grill is an incredibly easy way to make some delicious and inexpensive barbecue.  There are a lot of different ways that you can approach this cut of pork but I really like the simplicity of this technique and it is hard to argue with the results.

Let’s get started!

Get the Country Style Pork Ribs Ready for the Pellet Grill

When I cook country style ribs the first thing I always do is to rinse them under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels.

This type of “rib” is made by sawing slices off of a Boston Butt.  Quite often the sawing process will leave behind little bits of bone that are sprinkled across the surface of the meat like sawdust.  I do the same thing when smoking pork steaks which is a modified version of this cut.

Once the meat has been cleaned up you can apply your dry rub of choice.  A great rub that I like to use is given below:

Dry Rub for Country Style Pork Ribs

• 8 Tablespoons turbinado sugar
• 3 Tablespoons salt
• 1 Tablespoons granulated garlic
• 1 Tablespoons smoked paprika
• 1/2 Tablespoon granulated onion
• 1 teaspoons ground Ancho chile pepper
• 1 teaspoons ground Chipotle chile pepper
• 1 teaspoons Gebhardt’s Chili Powder
• 1 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Accent (MSG)

Once the meat is seasoned let it rest for at least 30 minutes at room temperature.

Set Up Your Pellet Grill for Smoking

Everyone has their favorite setup for smoking on their pellet grills and mine is given below.  I was cooking on a Z Grills pellet grill but you can adapt the technique to work on your Pit Boss or Traeger.

Start by turning on your pellet grill and setting the temperature to 225F.

Place an aluminum foil pan on the lower cooking grate and add 2-3 cups of hot water.

Fill a six inch smoke tube with wood pellets and place it on the lower grate beside the water pan. Light the pellets with a torch for 20 seconds and then blow out the flame.

Place the seasoned country style ribs on the top grate for smoking.

Cook the Ribs at 225F for 90 Minutes

Once the meat is on the pellet grill you can close the lid and walk away for 90 minutes.

After 90 minutes the rub will have set, the ribs will have nice color and should have reached an internal temperature of 140-145F.  The ribs are done and incredibly juicy at 145F but I like to add another layer of flavor with some barbecue sauce.

Note: Some people like to turn country style ribs into pulled pork and at this point they would wrap the meat in aluminum foil until it hit about 205F.  There is nothing wrong with that method but I like the pork better when it is sliced up like pork chops. 

Paint the smoked ribs with your barbecue sauce of choice.  Sometimes I like to use a sweet sauce, sometimes I use melted peach preserves and sometimes I go with a bold and spicy profile.  The nice thing about this cut of pork is it is versatile enough to match a lot of flavor profiles.

For this cook I used some Head Country Hot and Spicy barbecue sauce.

Apply the sauce, close the lid and wait about 10 minutes for the sauce to set a little.

After 10-15 minutes remove the smoked country style ribs from your pellet grill, allow to cool slightly and slice into serving pieces.

Some of the portions will have bones and other will not.  Additionally, some pieces may have a thick fat cap while other pieces are lean.  Due to the variety of compositions I like to trim and slice all of the meat myself and serve it on a platter rather than serve individual hunks of meat.