When I got the pork loin roast, I also picked up some spareribs. Wed night: dry-brined (which is a fancy way of saying I unwrapped the meat, sprinkled some salt and pepper on it, and put it back in the fridge.
Cooking times and temps
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There is also a NYT piece about making ribs w/o smoke
Time and temp is even more variable than for the loin roast. This reflects different styles of rib cookery, but generally the times are longer, which makes sense based on more connective tissue in the ribs. People seem to package the racks separately, and often have spice rubs/marinades applied before the sous vide step.
On Wed night I took the presalted ribs, cut them to fit into two 1 qt ziplocks, haphazardly threw in some soy, sherry, star anise, and brown sugar, and threw them into a 138F bath. I wasn’t as systematic about this as I should have been, as I was also thinking about a coding project and wanted to get them into the water bath before I became hypnotized by debugging javascript.
Finishing
I took them out around 6:30PM today for a ~22 hour cook. The fragrance of the star anise was very nice as I opened the bags. I made a glaze by mixing hoisin sauce, ketchup, and sambal. Popped them in the broiler to set the glaze did two coats on each side and removed them when the glaze was just bubbling.
The ribs came out pretty much how I wanted. Tender but with a good bite, not falling off the bone. The star anise flavor and the other seasonings gave the meat a nice flavor and the glaze was really nice. Sweet, hot, and slightly acidic.
We saved the juices released by the ribs; the connective tissue gave it a nice gelatinous quality and the seasonings made it an interesting broth.