Loin Back Rib Experience


 
R

r benash

TVWBB Emerald Member
OK, I have to confess and my previous posts will confirm that I've been a spare rib bigot. For a good long while now. Mostly because I like the heavier meat, fat, etc on spares vs the typical baby backs I find either in the chains or local butcher.

To the point that I stopped looking at baby back ribs in the stores just because historically I didn't like the minimal amount of meat/reward for the effort and often the meat itself didn't have the flavor due the lack of it and or fat content at the start.

Anyway. On a recent trip to the local chain (Super Fresh in Manoa Shopping Center near me) I "tripped" over the family buy freezer and saw what appeared to be baby backs that were longer racks than typical and on closer look heavy with a nice bit of fat cap if you will. As in over 3 lbs. I believe the ones I pulled were almost 4 lb.

They were thawed in cryo, said "all natural" and on picking them up felt very thick. The label said "loin back ribs" which I figured meant they were baby back with just more of the loin left on.

Bought two racks since they looked so darn good. Don't even remember the price as that wasn't an issue they looked so good to me.

Anyway I cooked a rack up with my typical/standard rub and one with the Chinese style marinate from the Raichlen's book which I like.

I was overwhelmed with the flavor, meatiness, pull, etc. They cooked up perfect, heavy and flavorful. I swear the small end rib was almost 4 oz. Got a nice ring almost all the way to the bone, but that's more about putting them on cold and doing a slower cook than I usually do.

Perfect, and I will be looking for these again if not for anything more than to record the brand/producer for future reference. Quality was excellent. I only wish I could find beef ribs around here with this much meat on them.

So, somewhat less of a spare bigot now.... if I can get baby backs consistently with this quality.

Loin Back Ribs
 
WoW! They look exellent! Lots of meat per bone right there! Nice find Ray!

My butcher give me thicker BB/loin ribs then the normal supermarket spares.
 
Ray, I wonder why more folks don't cut slabs in half before smoking on the 18.5". At the price of meat nowadays, I don't want ANY overcooked ribs (slab ends), and your's looked fantastic.

I hear Costco has some really meaty loinbacks as well.
 
Thanks guys, kind of boring as far as the cook - there's plenty of rib posts about - found these to be cut very nicely and better quality than usual from Super Fresh IMHO.

Hey Dave - to be honest these racks were so long they were pushing the diameter of the 18.5. I.E. for scale each one of the tiles on the counter top in the photo is 6". So I needed to either stand them up and curve them around a bit or cut them and stand them up in the rack. I decided to do the latter.

Could have used two grates, but that seemed to be a waste.

I really don't have a problem with cutting racks this long in half and also do it with spares if I need too. Also help bring the ends in from the edge heat, etc.
 
I usually buy loin backs from Fry's (Kroger's Arizona store) and they are very similar. I also recently cut them in half and they were probably the best ribs I've made. At Fry's most of the loin backs are 3-3.5 lbs, it is hard to find anything much below 3 lbs.
 
Well I'm sold on these. If I do cook up back ribs they will be loin backs.

Still love spares though!
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Call me a heretic but I prefer the smaller back ribs. Problem is I can't find them anywhere. Costco sells gigantic loin back ribs, 3 per pack. Unless I'm feeding an army, it's just too much for me and my kids.

The other problem is they take forever to cook. I have to cook them for close to 7 hours to get them fall off the bone tender. I cook at 225 on a 22.5 inch WSM using water (for now). I do not foil. I have used foil in the past but I prefer a really crunchy bark.

I have a local butcher but lately his "baby backs" are really loin backs. I got some yesterday and they were over 3lbs per slab. I cooked them today, cutting the two slabs in half so I had 4 sections. The two smaller halves appeared to be done around the 5.5 hour mark so I took them off. They were good, not great. There was a bit too much chew in them for my taste. I like them a bit more tender. I left the two larger halves on the WSM. I'm hoping two more hours does the trick.

My next cook I'm going to foil. I used to love cooking ribs because they didn't take all day. I'll just try and firm up the bark after they come out of the foil. These 7 hour cooks are killing me.
 
Originally posted by Christopher_C_ G:
Call me a heretic but I prefer the smaller back ribs. Problem is I can't find them anywhere. Costco sells gigantic loin back ribs, 3 per pack. Unless I'm feeding an army, it's just too much for me and my kids.

The other problem is they take forever to cook. I have to cook them for close to 7 hours to get them fall off the bone tender. I cook at 225 on a 22.5 inch WSM using water (for now). I do not foil. I have used foil in the past but I prefer a really crunchy bark.

I have a local butcher but lately his "baby backs" are really loin backs. I got some yesterday and they were over 3lbs per slab. I cooked them today, cutting the two slabs in half so I had 4 sections. The two smaller halves appeared to be done around the 5.5 hour mark so I took them off. They were good, not great. There was a bit too much chew in them for my taste. I like them a bit more tender. I left the two larger halves on the WSM. I'm hoping two more hours does the trick.

My next cook I'm going to foil. I used to love cooking ribs because they didn't take all day. I'll just try and firm up the bark after they come out of the foil. These 7 hour cooks are killing me.
Click to expand...

Christopher, don't sweat the big loinbacks. Do cook hotter than 225* though. I use water in the pan too, but I usually end up cooking 250*, or even higher. You'll get much more predictable timeframes if you invest in a digital unit like the Maverick ET-73 and clip the probe dead center underneath your top grate. The gauge is highly affected by meat temps and weather conditions, not to mention it's cheap so accuracy is suspect as well.

Since you do prefer a crunchy bark though, skip the water and simply foil the pan. If you want crunchy AND really tender, yes foil the ribs, but don't add any liguid to the foil and don't forget about 'em. It'll be a bit of trial and error at first, but you won't have any more SEVEN hour rib cooks. That's for sure. I'd work on developing a predictable timeframe for whatever size loinbacks you can reliably find, cooking at about 300* if you stick with foiling.
 
Interestingly the two racks I left on the WSM for 2 more hours came out spectacular. The extra 2 hours made all the difference.

I have a Maverick but rarely use it for smoker temp. The times I have, the lid is fairly close to the probe so I can mentally adjust the lid temp (generally my grate is about 15-25 degrees hotter than at the lid).

The other thing about the loin backs is I don't always enjoy eating the meat on top of the bone. I know, call me crazy, but I prefer the meat in-between the bones. Which is why I like smaller baby backs.

But thanks for the response. I will definitely experiment a bit with foil and higher temps. I have done both in the past and had good results.
 
Man those look excellent. baby back rib fiend here. I love those short, super fat ribs more than anything. Mmmmmmmmm MMM hard to beat!
 
I ran these two racks split in 4 as shown at 225-250. I did an x-x-x method. About 2.5 - 3 hours, then about 1-1.5 in foil and then an hour to bark up. I don't always use the 3-2-1 sort of method but when I don't have time to be checking/watching I tend to use it as well as lower temps than typical.

I usually cook at hotter temps and am sure they would have come out just the same. Just that I didn't have the time to be watching them as I would have with shorter cook time so went slower.

The brand at the Super Fresh was Prairie Fresh and boldly marked 100% natural.

I did notice yesterday (went late in the day) that they had them mixed in with the store brand loin backs.

The PF's still looked better than store brand although it was clear that I would need to watch the bin to get racks as heavy as the ones I got. The PF's that were there were just as nice as far as trim but were light in size/weight.

Looks like they open a case of frozen cryo and dump them in the bin, mixing brands.

Need to stop buy and pick them over. Go in the morning when they stock, etc. These are 4.99 lb.
The loin backs in the store ranged 2.99 to 4.99. There are about 4 different brands. None of them looked as nice as the pair that I got early this week when the store opened, but the PF's looked consistently higher quality/better cut.

PF Website
 
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