It does not matter if you are using a gas grill or charcoal, ribs on a barbeque are as much a part of summer as mosquitoes. Here is how I do mine.

Step One: Preparation

The meat should be thawed first. Ribs are really fatty, but it is not a concern as it will melt and drip off. Rarely do I add any seasoning initially. Spices tend to burn on a barbeque. They come later.

Ribs are best cooked on an indirect heat. With the fat on them you will have flare ups and soot all over your ribs. Yeuch!

With a gas grill, I fire it up and get it hot inside. Crank it up, it won`t stay that way for long. You just want the grills to heat up to instantly sear the meat.

On a traditional charcoal grill, get the coals white hot. Then bank them on one side of the grill.

Step Two: Sear The Meat

When I place my ribs on the grill, I mmediately close the lid and turn off the burner directly under the ribs and wait about 4 minutes with the other burner on high.

I then flip the ribs on the opposite burner, re-light the burner I turned off earlier, and turn off the burner under the ribs again. Close the lid and wait four minutes.

On a charcoal grill, place the ribs on the coals to sear. Watch them closely. With fat melting off the ribs, you risk flareups. Have a trigger sprayer of water handy.

Step Three: Slow Cooking

This is my ultimate barbeque secret. Too many people want to flash cook on a grill. This leaves the food burnt to a crisp on the outside and raw inside or tough and dry. The secret to melt in your mouth ribs is slow cooking. Here is how I do it.

Place the ribs on the upper rack. Turn on all the burners to low. You want the temperature around the 350 degree mark. Adjust your burners until you do.

On a charcoal grill, take the ribs off the heat. Remember I had you bank the coals earlier? This is why. Place the ribs on the side of the grill with no coals, and cover with a lid.

I like to flip the ribs every ten minutes to prevent burning and to promote self basting. I also like to cook ribs at a total of 25 minutes per side this way.

Step Four: The sauce

Here is a little trick I stumbled upon. When you apply sauce, it drips, it flares and burns easily due to the sugar content. Burned sauce is awful.

So now whenever I sauce my food I use this little trick.

In this case remove ribs from the top grill. Place a layer of tin foil on the top grill. Replace the ribs on top of the tin foil. Brush on your favorite sauce on both sides. Cover for ten minutes to set the sauce.

Step Five: The Extras

The really cool thing about cooking ribs is that you can bake a potatoe in the same time it takes to cook ribs. Take one large or two small potatoes per person. Using a fork, poke the potatoe several times piercing the skin. Wrap the potatoe with tin foil. Place on top rack with ribs and flip every ten minutes just like the ribs.

Ribs also lends itself beautifully to smoking as well. It takes a little while longer as you need a lower heat, but it is well worth it.

Soak your wood chips for an hour in water. If you have a cast iron smoker box, great. If not, you can fashion one with tin foil. Wrap the wood chips in foil, and poke holes in the top to allow smoke to escape.

Place the smoker box directly on the burner of your grill, and turn down the heat. The trick is to get the wood chips to smoke, not to ignite. If you see white smoke coming out of your barbeque, it is too hot. If you can smell the fragrance of hichory or mesquite, it is just right.

Step Six: Enjoy

Congratulations, you have just prepared a batch of melt in mouth ribs that will make you the star of any cook out. Provided of course you decide to pass the platter. Some things in life are just too good to share.