Gamey Ribs

[Joe McManus]

Cooked some back ribs this weekend. Turned out pretty good, with the exception that there was an underlying "gaminess" flavor to them. Almost like they were old ribs or something. I saw no noticible signs of freezer burn or anything, just some areas around the ends that looked a little darker than might be considered norm. I was trying out a new supplier for competition ribs. They get their ribs frozen and with the membrane already removed. They were only wrapped in commercial saran wrap. In the end, I can't say that this flavor helped the ribs, on the contrary, they really left a bad aftertaste. Anyone have ideas of what was happening here?

 

[K Kruger]

Joe--

A few possibilities come to mind all having do to with packaging and storage.
Does your supplier get them frozen in cryo and then thaw and repackage before you get them? Did you get them already thawed? Was the commercial Saran you got them in wrapped around the ribs several times as one piece or was it two pieces sealed together in some way? Was there a meat tray in with the ribs or were they wrapped naked?

 

[Joe McManus]

Kevin,

I'm leaning towards a storage issue as well.

They come to the meat shop frozen. How they arrive there, I don't know. They come from the back freezer (still frozen) wrapped in about a double layer of "thicker" food service saran. No meat tray, wrapped naked.

Here's my guess: they come from the supplier maybe in cryovac, but I doubt it. They come in packs of two or three slabs. They get weighed and priced and put out on the counter. They come to the counter still frozen.

The retailer I got these from is a high end retailer. They have extremely high quality beef products. They work w/ a smaller producer of hogs (can't remember the name). What I'm a little concerned with is that I've grown accustomed to the generic blandness of mass produced hogs, and when thrown into the world of more craft raised hogs, I'm not able to adjust to the unrefined flavors produced. But the aftertaste I had yesterday wasn't a pleasant flavor...wasn't terrible of uneatable, just not very nice.

My wife accuses me of being hypercritical about everything I cook, but after I mentioned this gaminess to her, she couldn't dismiss it either. That's the other thing, it seemed to be more prevalent on the ends than in the center of the rack.

 

[K Kruger]

Joe--

I was going to mention the small-grower possibility but that did not seem likely based on your description. However, as a sidenote: Pork produced by small growers--specifically and especially pastured-pig growers--use specific 'heritage' breeds like Tamworths, Berkshires, Herefords, et. al., for their superior flavor and their not bred-out ability to do very well breeding, foraging, and growing on their own, unlike the overly cross-bred pigs used on commodity farms. The meat is bolder, richer, but I would not describe it as gamey. If you ever want to give pastured-pigs a shot a guy named Greg Gunthorp in La Grange, Ind. (Gunthorp Farm , I believe), raises great pigs, perfect for a whole-pig cook. I heard that he was or is starting to sell at a farmer's market in Chicago this year, presumably cuts. It's not cheap though.

Anyway, it sounds like the ends either thawed and got warm at some point before being re-frozen (more likely) or the ends or meat did not get frozen quickly enough at the outset. When the meat was thawing the off-flavor would slowly start to permeate the rest of the meat. I have seen this occur when something warm--hot even--is squashed againt something else in a freezer or fridge when that something else wasn't chilled sufficiently yet. The part of the 'something else' gets and stay warm for too long and spoilage starts to occur. Hard to know what happened without knowing the whole flow from butchering to your purchase but it sounds to me like that is what you were tasting.

 

[Joe McManus]

Kevin,

We seem to have a dialog going here. Thanks for the comments thus far. One follow up question. The off colorness of the rib ends, could that be any indicator or a bad freezing and/or thawing process? This was mostly present bone side (back side) of the slab. Instead of having that nice pink/red color, there was a tinge of grey to it. Not terrible, but just enough to make me second guess. There were no off smells either. Checked all three slabs for that.

 

[K Kruger]

Yes, especially if there was outside air involved, a tiny hole perhaps, however minute, although it is not required. 'Tinge of grey' makes me think air (and warmth) but maybe not. This was on the meat not the bone or fat, right? One occasaionally sees grey-tinged meat that was vac-packed very quickly; loss of oxygen exposure causes that, but I'm not getting that sense here.

Note that there are pathogenic bacteria that are not noticeable by smell. However, they do not cause color issues at the outset. If that was an issue I would have thought you would have noticed it in--shall we say--not so pleasant ways since. Spoilage bacteria are noticeable by smell, though if the meat just started to spoil in small areas and then the spoilage was arrested by chilling/freezing what smell might be there might be far less noticeable when the meat was thawed, especially if it stayed fairly cold till cooked.

The rib racks were all wrapped together, not individually wrapped then wrapped as a package? If so, the other two looked 'normal' (i.e., not at all off-color) and they had no gamey taste--did you cook all three? Was that rack on the bottom of the atack of three perchance?

I'm leaning toward something amiss with freezing or thawing or some sort of mishandling of that one rack. (I realize that that is fairly vague.)