Bones blow out on St. Louis Ribs


 
Donna Fong

Donna Fong

TVWBB Super Fan
Hello there,
I have a question. I sometimes get bones on one end of my rack that blow out. I have a few theories on this. Either I am trimming down my ribs too close to the bone so there isn't enough meat to hang onto. Or maybe I'm cooking too hot, wrapping too late, or maybe I should just flip the rack at some point. I foil my ribs. Does anyone have an idea what the problem might be?
Donna
 
I don't have an answer for you Donna, but I did want to say Hi! Curious why you don't check with dad...You fitting to go up against him in a rib cook? I'll be happy to judge :)
 
I wish I knew the answer as well.. It happens to me often. I try to babysit them to try to catch them right before they pop out too much.
Once at a comp I went to open up my ribs to sauce and none of the bones popped out. I cook 6 racks and NONE of them broke through. I thought I undercooked them, but when I started cutting and tasting them, they were all spot on tender.
I tried to think of what the heck I did that day and try to repeat it, but still haven't figured it out.
Funny thing is I was thinking of asking you or Harry, I figured you guys would know, lol.
 
Are you talking about the ribs at the end of the rack? Like the last 1 or 2?

This happens to me regularly. I think it's because the bones on the outside of the rack are always overcooked compared to the bones in the middle. This coupled with the type of competition trimming I do plus pushing the ribs so close to tender in the middle bones causes the last bone on the end to pop out.

Most of the time I'll leave an extra bone on the end during trimming as a "sacrifice" bone since I know it will pop out anyway.
 
I get pop outs in the middle of the rack as well. I try to get them really tender throughout the whole rack.
 
You crack me up Jerry. For turn in purposes, I do try to cut the multiple racks down to the same length so they look uniform in the box. That is just in case more than one rack is represented in the box. That may or may not happen but you want to be prepared. So this practice pushes me to have a tendency to cut down the shortest length among my racks.

The bones that are the longest and largest are usually bone 2 or 3. So I cut off the rib tip (that is, the meat and cartilage that connects the ribs to the sternum) off to the longest bones. Bone 13 is the smallest and pretty well embedded in meat. That small rib doesn't usually pop out of the meat surrounding it. But definitely rib 1 (the one closest to the sternum) does pop out very often.

I remember going down on my trimming more than usual and then getting more popping than usual. So I really think that it is from over aggressive trimming to the St. Louis cut. I guess another way to think about it is, does the none St. Louis cut rack have this behavior? Probably not. But this is something we see in competition bbq because I do St. Louis cut and because I am shooting for a certain level of tenderness.

The other theories I had were based on a comment from one of our rib instructors during our CBBQA 101 class. He said something about flipping a rack at some point and I asked him about it. He said he wanted to distribute the heat better and I can imagine that to be true as well. If you heat the bottom too much (and the heat on WSM comes from the bottom), then the bottom will cook faster and the meat will become harder faster on the meat side. This will tend to tighten from the meat side and tend to push the bone out. So I thought maybe high heat or unevenly distributed heat is a contributing factor. But I am not sure.

I'm going to be less aggressive in my trimming and see if that helps. My gut tells me it will.
 
Could it be that the ends of the ribs are just getting more heat than the rest? Are they overlapping the area blocked by the water pan and getting a little direct heat?
 
IMO the outside rib is always overdone when the middle ribs are perfect. This tells me that the ribs on the end are cooking faster because there is hot air on one side of that rib instead of cold meat on either side.

Similar to why chicken in the middle of the pan cooks slower than chicken on the outside of the pan.

Donna I'd be interested if you found out that less aggressive trimming would help
 
ChuckO said:
OK, how about at the next Giants Game? (Donna is a A's fan for anyone reading this) :)
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That's true. We went to the A's opener on Monday and will be going to another A's game again in June. However, my daughter is a Giants fan so we will be there when the Giants play the Dodgers. But she wants the $16 Crazy Crab'z Dungeness crab sandwich from behind center field. It'll be Harry's first time at that stadium.

Justin is correct about the ends being overcooked. But I'm describing the bones falling out which isn't necessarily happening at the same time as when the meat is done. I can get tender meat with bones intact. I can also get undercooked meat with bones busting out.

I'll be cooking again next month for a CBJ class so I should have plenty of time to test the theory. Thank you guys for your input. I really appreciate it.
 
Donna,
As what cooking phase does this most often happen, like during the connective tissue denaturing phase (IF there is such a 'phase') ?
 
Hi Bob,
That's a good guess. When the collagen is converting to gelatin but I don't think it is happening fast enough. I think the basal membrane of the rib is breaking down before the conversion is complete which is why the bone is popping out. If the conversion to gelatin was complete, I don't think this would happen because the meat would be soft. I'd prefer the conversion happen BEFORE the membrane has broken down. The cheater method would be just to trim less aggressively and increase the membrane surface area so as to keep the bone down in there. I think.
Donna
 
Donna Fong said:
my daughter is a Giants fan so we will be there when the Giants play the Dodgers
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If there was a game I wouldn't suggest, it would be a Dodger's game. It is not fun, it's hostile like nobody's business, especially in the bleachers where you're sitting in the sun all day. It gets ugly out there. That's my two cents, can I have a rib now? :)
 
ChuckO said:
If there was a game I wouldn't suggest, it would be a Dodger's game. It is not fun, it's hostile like nobody's business, especially in the bleachers where you're sitting in the sun all day. It gets ugly out there. That's my two cents, can I have a rib now? :)
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Oh yeah, you def do not want to be an away team sitting in the left/right field pavilion seats. lol It's grimy in there.

EDIT: oopps, I assume it was in LA. lol
 
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So Chuck, you're saying it wouldn't be a good idea to give Harry a Dodger hat to wear at AT&T that day? He is from LA, you know.
 
Donna Fong said:
So Chuck, you're saying it wouldn't be a good idea to give Harry a Dodger hat to wear at AT&T that day? He is from LA, you know.
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Giants fans are a rabid bunch, and extra Rabid when the Dodgers are in town. I would no more wear a Dodgers hat at the Giants, than I would wear a Giants hat at the Dodgers :)
 
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