Big U.S. Slabs

Posted by BBQ Resources at 3/22/2009 8:16 AM
Categories: Recipes
Well folks, been a while since you've experienced a post from the Qfan!  Believe me, I've been cooking and playing around in the kitchen and at the que, but just some minor projects and, of course,  daily meals to feed the family.  I've snapped pictures of the cooks that I thought turned out well and those that had some charcuterie and/or bbq elements to them, so now I've found some time to get those pictures online and some words attached to them.  

For those who love the charcuterie-style recipes, you'll be glad to hear that a couple longer-term curing projects are just coming to full fruition (a fresh stab at the Bresaola recipe, with a few new spins attempted, and the monster Blackstrap molasses and rum-cured country ham recipe that's been nearly 4 months in the making).  However, those are still a week or more away from being ready, so in the meantime, here are the results from a few one-day cooks.  First off...

Big U.S. Spares

When Homefires Burnin' does bbq cookoffs in the US, we usually stop and get spare ribs to cook.  I just prefer them for slicing ease and for overall better flavour.  In Canada, I avoid spare ribs because they just aren't readily available up to the size I prefer working with.  I am told that Canadian hogs are sent to market younger and at a smaller size and that is why the spare ribs are generally so small/thin compared to their US counterparts.

Recently, our local SuperCentre had US spare ribs available and on sale so I scooped some up for the freezer.  Running close to 4 lbs for a slab, these were some bigass spare ribs, as you can see.



For bbq contests, and even for eating at home if I want my wife and daughter to dig in, these ribs need to be trimmed down to what is called a "St. Louis style" spare rib.  That will entail removing the breast bone portion of the rib, as well as the little flap of meat on the bone-side of the slab.  This is removing about 40% of this full spare, but the removed part is not discarded.  It can be bbq'd on its own for a snack for those who don't give a crap if their ribs aren't all pretty aligned rib bones and want to gnaw a little for the meat on this portion of the rib, or it can be deboned and the meat used in sauces, stews, chilis etc.  Regardless, don't throw this out; it has many other culinary possibilities, but just not as a competition rib entry.

The cut to separate the rib portion from the breastbone section starts just about where you see that notched edge on the left.  It's much easier to see where the rib bones end and the breast portion begins when you have the ribs flipped over, meat-side down.  A reasonable chef's knife will find and follow the seam across the mid-section of the rib pretty easily.  A little practice, and you can hit that seam easily every time.



The top portion is the St. Louis rib portion, the bottom the breastbone.  A little knife work will tidy up the cut edge, remove some extra surface fat, too-thin edges, the flap and the membrane on the back.  With two same-size slabs of US spares, we have a good sized portion of ribs to go onto our smoker for dinner tonight!



While meat selection, temperature, time, technique, smoker and smokewood all play substantial roles in the quality of your final ribs, there are two flavour components that will ultimately determine the success of your ribs, and those items are, 1. the rub and 2. the sauce.  The rub is the spice blend that you decide to use to season the ribs.  It can be as simple as salt and pepper and as complex as the contents of your spice pantry can make it.  At some point, I will sit down and go into a detailed post all about rubs and their elements and how to strike a balanced attack in the flavouring of your bbq and smoked meats, but that's not for today.  I was fortunate enough to work for a number of years with Chris Capell in developing a very successful roster of spice blends that we brought to the market under the name of Dizzy Pig BBQ.  So, you can suffice it to say, that although I am no long part of the company, I believe these are top quality products that produce awesome bbq results.  To that end, these ribs are getting treated to a 'spin' of Dizzy Pig rubs for seasoning.  For the sauce, I tend to go towards what is referred to as a Kansas City style sauce, meaning usually the 3 S's are involved: sweet, smokey and sticky.  I like to add a 3rd 'S' to that mix and use a sauce with some sheen.  For at home it isn't a real factor, but at a competition, a rib that has a nice sheen to it, just makes it look all that more attractive and tantalizing to a judge, IMO.

My approach with the rub is to apply it to the ribs about 30-45 minutes before they are due to go on the smoker.  Since the rubs contain salt, they will draw some of the moisture in the ribs to the surface and it helps to meld the rub and the meat and they just kinda start to co-mingle that way.  As you can see from the following picture, I did do this, but that melting and melding didn't really take place as much as I'd like.  The reason?  It was still super-cold on the day I did these ribs and with limited fridge space, I set them outside after applying the rub and putting on the grill.  With the extreme cold, the salt and sugar crystals didn't partially dissolve into the meat like they usually do and so, the result is that the rub stayed in a granular state well into the cook.  It didn't really hurt the flavour at the end, but in appearance it had an effect.  Live and learn, even after all these years......



For smoking, the ribs cook indirect (foil-covered ceramic platesetter under the ribs to act as a buffer between charcoal and meat) for approximately 6-7 hrs (remember, these are thick spares!) at a temperature at the meat of 225-235 on average.  I am tending to use cherrywood for smoking on a very consistent basis these days, and that is what is utilized here.  As you can see by the picture above, the ribs are pulling from the bone nicely without the aid of foil wrapping, just good old Father Time doing his thing.  You can also see the internal fat bubbling up through the rub crust in certain spots.  That's a sure sign they are nearly finished up, at least it's worked for me as an indicator.  I tend to apply the sauce about half-hour before the finish, applying one good coat at first and then, when that sets up, one final, thinner brushing to get the gloss up on the surface.  

While these ribs weren't my best effort ever, (why is it when you decide to document a cook, it is NEVER the best version of the recipe? LOL), they turned out quite nice, with juicy rib meat, a good smoke flavour and ring and the rub and sauce were part of the rib and not just separate components laying on top, which sometimes seems to be the case.  I am a huge fan and supporter of our Ontario Pork program, but this is one area of exception, based only on the size and heft of the bigass US spares; they take more time, but they are a joy to work with.  



Qfan
 

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  • 3/22/2009 2:33 PM Rob wrote:
    Great post... I've always been disappointed in the thin ribs I've been buying in the grocery stores and butcher shops. I discovered US spares last year at Costco (their pork, at least in the praries, all seems to come from Colorado) and have been buying them there exclusively ever since. They're every bit as big and thick as you describe. Interesting note about Canada bringing their hogs to market earlier. That might just explain it.
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  • 3/26/2009 2:05 AM Graham Jones wrote:
    Great article Mike. I ran across the web site from the Free Press. I am very happy to see you are doing so well.
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  • 4/7/2009 8:21 PM Big Guy wrote:
    I brought back a couple of loins from Fl we just can't get that size of loin here. Big ass pork chops for the Q.
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