What did I buy, baby's or spares?

[Guest]

How can you tell the difference between spares and babybacks? I bought what Albertson's was calling babybacks, but they are so thick I question whether they are actually spares. On one side of the slabs (this is the part that is very thick) you can see the round ends of the ribs and what looks like second an additional set of bone ends that are right beside the normal rib bone ends. Can anyone tell me what these additional round bones are? Did I get BB's or spares? By the way, they weigh about 2.5 pounds per rack.

 

[Chris Allingham]

Here are links to photos of each:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Loin back (baby back)
<LI>Whole sparerib
<LI>Sparerib - St. Louis style
[/list]

I'm not a bone expert, so I can't tell you exactly what those "second" bones are, but you sometimes see them in loin back ribs depending on how the slabs are cut.

Hopefully the photos will help you identify your mystery meat. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Regards,
Chris

 

[Wesley S]

Mystery Meat. LOL

I do have a question though. What part of the hog is Applebee's Riblets? The first time I ordered these I thought they were boneless (yea I know bonehead) and got quite the shock when I bit down. Very thin like bone in the middle but they are wonderful to eat.

 

[Kevin Taylor]

Mike...

Here is another source of info on ribs. If you saw round bones, they are most likely BB's. The weight also sounds like the thick BB's I get from Sam's....they weigh about 2 1/4lbs. per slab. However, I have also bought St. Louis cut spares from Gordon's and they can look pretty similar to BB's.

Ribs explained

For Wes.....

I was told some time ago that the restaurant industry uses Danish ribs. You may recall the time we banned ribs from Europe for Mad Cow disease. This put a horrible crunch on the restaurants here in the states. 90% of the ribs used in restaurants(mostly the large chains) are from the Danes.

The Danes grow their hogs much smaller than ours and that results in smaller ribs. Our normal butcher weight is 260lbs. per hog. Theirs come in at around 230lbs. Apparently, these are then cut in such a way as to yield those small tidbits. Not sure about this, but I think I am on the right track.

 

[Doug D]

The easiest way I can think to explain how to tell the difference is to ask are the bones generally more straight (spares) or curved (baby backs)?

 

[Guest]

Thanks guys, It sounds like I got babybacks. The bones were very rounded.