Jeff Bittel
TVWBB Fan
Yesterday I had an opportunity to try a little experiment. I was cooking ribs for a gathering of adult leaders for our Cub Scout Pack. I had volunteered to cook the ribs. Now I have my preference for ribs, and I have read the pros and cons on this and other forums as to which is better, spares or baby backs. So I decided to test this on a group of people who only occasionally get to eat ribs, and to my knowledge none of them own a smoker. Bottom line they tasted with an open mind.
I cooked three racks of each, using the exact same rub and cooked them all in the same WSM. The spares were trimmed Kansas City style. I put them in, and pulled them out at the same time (4 1/2 hours). I cooked them to the tenderness that I like. Meat was pulled off the bone, but still had to a small bit of fight left chewing them off the bone (but not much).
When I cut them up, I placed them on two separate serving dish's and asked the audience to tell me their preference when finished. It was a lot of fun listening to the comments. As it turned out I had three different groups. Those that definitely liked the spares, those that definitely liked the baby backs, and third group that swore they could not decide which was better and claimed it was torture trying to decide.
General comments:
Baby Backs
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>More meat
More juice
More fat
Sweeter[/list]
Spare Ribs
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>Better taste
More flavor
Less fat (and meat)[/list]
What I learned was that either one can be a crowd pleaser if cooked properly. I do think the Baby Backs go further because they have more meat than spare ribs in general. They are also easier to prepare. In the future for large gatherings I will cook the BB's, but for my home cooking I will stick with the spare ribs because I'm part of the crowd that thinks they have just a tiny bit more natural flavor.
I cooked three racks of each, using the exact same rub and cooked them all in the same WSM. The spares were trimmed Kansas City style. I put them in, and pulled them out at the same time (4 1/2 hours). I cooked them to the tenderness that I like. Meat was pulled off the bone, but still had to a small bit of fight left chewing them off the bone (but not much).
When I cut them up, I placed them on two separate serving dish's and asked the audience to tell me their preference when finished. It was a lot of fun listening to the comments. As it turned out I had three different groups. Those that definitely liked the spares, those that definitely liked the baby backs, and third group that swore they could not decide which was better and claimed it was torture trying to decide.
General comments:
Baby Backs
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>More meat
More juice
More fat
Sweeter[/list]
Spare Ribs
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>Better taste
More flavor
Less fat (and meat)[/list]
What I learned was that either one can be a crowd pleaser if cooked properly. I do think the Baby Backs go further because they have more meat than spare ribs in general. They are also easier to prepare. In the future for large gatherings I will cook the BB's, but for my home cooking I will stick with the spare ribs because I'm part of the crowd that thinks they have just a tiny bit more natural flavor.