Spare Ribs

I decided to try spare ribs today rather than my bronto baby backs.

After all the investigation , here and on the Kansas City Bulletin board, I'm a bit confused. Maybe the ribs I got were a bit different.

1).Further down the slab, there is virtually no bone. This runs 1/3 of the rib.

2). On one of the racks, on the bone side, there was a distinct peice of meat that I took for the skirt and removed. The second, larger, rack did not seem to have one of these. I darn near cut all the way through the rib in an attempt to remove what I thought was the skirt, but there just wasn't much there.

I did remove the "side" of the ribs with little difficulty.

They seem awfully thin and have a lot of meat with no bone. Wierd.

Any thoughts ? I anxiously await Chris's pictures on the proper trimming of these monsters.

Thanks,

Steve in Mpls

Hey, look at you, you've achieved Veteran Member status, too! I think you did it faster than anyone else so far! Keep on posting!

In my mind, the structure of spare ribs is a lot more complicated than loin back ribs. I think you're on the right track, though. You want to cut along the top edge of the rib bones to remove the breast bone and cartilage, and toward the end of the slab opposite the breast bone you'll find lots of meat without a lot of bone. The rib bones can get small and flat toward that end.

The flap of meat covered with membrane on the back of the slab is the skirt. It may vary in size from one slab to another, or perhaps it got removed in processing and you won't find one at all.

There's a great diagram at http://www.ribman.com/abtribs.html#diag2 that shows where the ribs come from on the pig carcass, and you can clearly see how the bones lay out in the slab and where you cut to remove the breast bone and cartilage. Some of that white space around those bones is just meat, meat, meat.

Hope this helps. I'm not a superfan of spares, so anyone out there who is more adept at dealing with them or can explain things more clearly than I have should definitely post a reply here.

Regards,
Chris

Actually, I should be able to reference that carcass graphic like this:

The spare ribs are the two sections toward the belly of the pig. The lowest section is the breast bone or rib tips, and the section right above that is what we think of as St. Louis or Kansas City style ribs, depending on whether the skirt meat is trimmed from the back side of the slab.

Loin back or baby back ribs are from the section directly above the spare ribs, the one with the vertical red line. You'll have to click the Ribman.com link in the previous post to read the detail that those red lines are pointing to.

Regards,
Chris

[This message has been edited by Chris Allingham (edited 07-01-2000).]

Here is a page with lots of good information on Ribs:

RIB PAGE

Thanks Guys, they are ready for the turn at this moment. I think they'll turn out alright.

As far as Veteran Status, it's only because I have so many questions.

Have a good holiday,

Steve

Steve,
Keep asking questions. The more you ask, the more we all learn.

Brian

Need some help. They have a county fair here every year. Right near the gate the is always a vendor the sells Bar-B-Que. The ribs he sells are very long (7 to 8"), has a huge amount of meat, and very little fat. The bones are about 3/4" and oval. They were not country ribs. I have never seen this type anywhere. Any thoughts as to what I was looking at. K

Beef ribs it sounds like.

I saw beef ribs like that at the Rib Ranch in Buckhead (Atlanta), Georgia. Right Rita?

They were the size of a kids' forearm, and they were excellent. I've asked my supermarket butcher about them, but these days too much of the meat for supermarkets comes pre-cut. I know a smaller butcher would be a better bet.

You're not exaggerating, Dave! Now that you have me thinking about it, I think we'll just have to go and test those beef ribs again, just to make sure they're still as good. Purely research, you understand.....

Rita

Sorry I took so long to get back here. Lost the bookmark. No for sure they were not beef ribs. I have seen, cooked, and eaten beef ribs. Don't really care for them much. Oh well guess ill never know cause every year I ask them and every year they won't tell me. If they are here again this year ill take a picture.