Good morning everyone, and please forgive me for neglecting this thread! I'll try to get the replies covered here:
Thomas, Roller, Mossy, Red and Husker: Thanks for the kind words, this truly is a very delicious way to go about a nice barbecue experience that is familiar in all "operational" aspects, but unique in its flavour profile.
Hooligan: Thanks for an outstanding idea; I will indeed give that a go for my next barbecue on this profile. In fact, it sounds so good, I just might try it as a seasoning for oven-roasted potatoes even sooner than that!
DDT - In my remote location ouzo is going to be pretty hard to find. If I manage to get my hands on some, I'd definitely be interested in giving that a try, since I've found similar "liquor" spritzes to work very well indeed.
JWB - This is definitely an excellent one to try, and when the time comes, if you ahve any questions, let me know. Your preferred temps/times will work just fine, but what I personally did was to brush them down with the olive oil/lemon juce, then apply the rub, then cover and refrigerate overnight.
The next morning I brought the pit up past 212, got the alder on to get some nice, sweet smoke and added the ribs to the pit in the 215-220 range. I then left them at that range for an hour or so in order to let the rub have a chance to "set" and the smoke get into the meat. Then, I started the olive oil/lemon juice spritz mop once each hour while also bringing the temps up a bit: the 230 range for a couple of hours, then the 250 range for a couple more. the lower temperatures at the beginning help with smoke rin penetration, and the higher temepratures at the end help with a nice bark and good carmelisation of the rub and the mop onto the meat. During this time (and I have come to believe that this is important), I also kept a water pan going, in spite of teh fact taht my offset is not exactly designed to have one. In my experience, this provides three things: deeper smoke ring, deeper, richer smoke flavour (without a bitter, "over-smoked" taint) and moister, juicier ribs. I did not foil at any time during the cooking. This combination of methods has been working very well for me, and if you're interested in the underlying logic, you can follow the discussion we've been having on this link:
http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/smoke-ring-in-barbeque-meats_topic2373.html
As far as time, my best answer is, "until they are done." In general, this state of being is indicated by a) good rendering of the fat (which acts as a baste for the meat) from insoide the ribs, 2) pull-back on the ribs, exposing the bone - and 3) a knife or similar sharb object sliding through the meat between the bones easily. This seems to happen around 5 or 6 hours, but can happen earlier or later and is quite a subjective thing depending on many factors. Keep in mind that these are spares and not baby backs, which would cook faster.
To "hit the easy button," I'll also throw this out: whatever basic rib cooking method works for you, should work here, with this flavour profile - this is simply the method I used for the actual cooking. The important things that make this unique from what I've tried before are the rub and the "slather"/mop/baste.
Hope this helps - any other questions, just ask.