Reschke wins so far, though salt isn't always salt. If you can do sea salt, might as well.
(yes, I have plenty of mortons around the house)
slow cook over indirect heat. Ribs are more of a process than a recipe.
As for BBQ sauce, that depends on what tradition you want to tap into. A few pointers:
A) many commercial BBQ sauces add that foul stuff known as "liquid smoke". this is because most people don't know how to properly get smoke on their meat. (such as hickory chips) Avoid this stuff. If you need a "smoky" bbq sauce, I suggest using chile chipotles in adobo sauce (=smoke jalapeno in tomato sauce). A little bit goes a long way.
B) many sauces and restaurants have figured out that most people associate "sweet" with "good". Now a little bit of sweetness can be handy, but too much sugar kills the flavor.
C) People will argue endlessly on the merits of tomato-based and vinegar-based sauces. Here's the short version:
A lot of what makes food taste good is fat cut with acid (fries and ketchup, salad dressing, eggs and tabasco, you can go down the list).With BBQ you've got a fatty meat (pig or cow), and the sauce needs to be acidic. Tomatoes cooked down become pretty darn acidic; and so's vinegar.
An additional role of BBQ sauce is moisturizing the meat.
Finally, you may be looking for flavors to complement (not smother) those of the meat (spicy! woohoo!).
Okay, so if your ribs are juicy, a good, spicy vinegar-based sauce might be indicated.
If your ribs have been sitting in the fridge for a month, then have been grilled to a charred black by some 18 year old, you probably want a heavy tomato-sauce-and-honey sauce.
