Barbecue is great but we don't all have pits or grills;  most of us do have ovens. You can still enjoy homemade barbecue right out the oven. What we'll do here is try to simulate as best we can what happens when we barbecue on a conventional barbecue pit.

Give this process at least 2-3 hours.

We're going to do beef ribs, chicken, pork chops and sausage... the regulars. Here we go...

Turn the oven on to broil. Season the meat with your favorite spices. We'll start with the ribs because they'll take the longest to tenderize. Remember, I said tenderize... not cook.

Now put the chicken in the broiler and do the same. While the chicken is broiling take your favorite barbecue sauce and add a few squirts of liquid smoke to it. Stir well and liberally coat the ribs with the sauce. Add about a 1/2 cup of water to the pan of ribs, put it in the oven on the top rack and let it cook. 

Repeat the process of saucing with the chicken and put it with the ribs. Repeat the entire process with the pork chops. Don't put the sausage in the broiler, if it bursts you could have a fire to deal with.

Let's stop here... we're only using the broiler to simulate some of  the browning that will take place on the pit and to get the meat kick started quickly, but, it's not perfect. 

After all the broiler browning is done lower the oven to 350ºF, add the sausage and more water if needed and continue to cook the meat for about 45 minutes to brown a little more. Take the meat out and sauce it some more and add some more water if needed, cook for another 15 minutes Remove the meat again and cover the pan with heavy duty aluminum foil lightly crimping the sides to seal it, lower oven to 275ºF and return it to the oven. 

The water in the pan will steam the meat thereby making it tender. The longer you keep it in the oven (with water) the more tender and juicy it will get. Take the pan out every 20 minutes and check the meat keeping an eye first on the chicken because it will get to the point of falling apart (you don't want that to happen, or, maybe you do...!). The chicken will tenderize first usually, so, be ready to take it out and put it in a holding pan. If you do take the chicken out just cover it with foil.

You may wind up with a little sauce in the bottom of the pan. You can lightly baste the meat with that when you take it out to check it.

You may have heard of people boiling ribs to get them tender. Although this does work, precious flavors are lost in the boiling water. Steaming does the same thing.

You can read more about conventional barbecue here.