To chew or not to chew, that is the rib question

Serious fans of BBQ ribs can be fervent and I’m fearful that what I’m about to say may be taken as sacrilege. I’ve always been a follower in the “meat falls off the bone” flock. When my husband said he wanted his ribs to be chewy, I thought he sounded a bit cracked. But he made a rational and persuasive argument using Chinese spareribs as an example. Although they are tender, they necessitate actually chewing the meat off of the bone.
We conducted various rib food labs. We cooked low and slow on the grill but found the hours of cooking to be a bit too tedious for us. One session of par boiling left the meat somewhat gray and mushy. We were finally satisfied with the outcome of par boiling by placing an oven-proof rack under the whole rack of ribs to lift them out of the water, essentially steaming them instead of boiling. We salted them and cooked to about 140 degrees in this step.
Rib food lab also covered various dry spicing and sauces. In the rivalry between the smoky and sweet BBQ sauces, we go for the sweet (Brook’s is a favorite). We also want the ribs to have some “bam” to compliment the sweet and tangy Brook’s sauce. Since we already salted in the par boiling step, we opt for Tony Chachere’s Original Creole seasoning which is not overly salty.
We generously coat the par boiled ribs with Creole seasoning and cook on the BBQ until the meat reaches about 160 degrees. The last step is to brush the top side of the ribs with BBQ sauce and continue cooking a bit longer.
We are pretty happy with the result as we fill our bellies with juicy, tender ribs.