Pork Spare Ribs for the smoker: Some questions.
Stuff all meat on the rib bones was an issue I tried to tackle but this left me with more questions than answers.
So I bought a big ole bit of belly with the ribs still on that was 3.5kg before I molested it. I was thinking ribs for me, belly for the missus (and me).
My conclusion is that it was the wrong cut for either belly or ribs, or the animal was too small. I would like to learn more about it because that is a pretty loose conclusion.
You can see the three cuts I got from it.
The green section shows what I trimmed from the ribs and is only a couple of mm thick. Perhaps I should have trimmed the skin and fat and a layer of meat from the bones instead of trimming the bones away from the rest. Perhaps If I had of included the next layer of meat (shown by the red) it would have left me with some meatier bones.
You can clearly see that to the right there are short ribs. Perhaps the 'ribs' that one buys are the section to the left (plus some) instead of the short ribs to the right. I might have made a poor choice by getting this section of long and short ribs. Watching Youtube clips of ribs being prepared for the BBQ, they follow the cartilage on the ends of the bones and end up with a long rectangular section. I followed the cartilage around and thus you can see the short ribs clearly.
The bit beyond the short ribs to the right (that the butcher cut off, might have been meatier but I didn't get a good look). If I was specifically after a meaty piece of pork belly would it be from the right of the short ribs or more towards the nipples?
Here is the membrane pulled off the ribs.
When I pulled the membrane off it did not want to come off the green enclosed section although I did not force the issue because I did not want to waste anymore potential meat from that section.
I think I probably should have just cut the skin and a layer of fat off and just called it meaty ribs (is this what 'country style' ribs are?) To get ribs like we see our American BBQ peeps using, I'd say that the carcase needs to be cut specifically for that section. In the picture below, I have indicated in red, how perhaps a carcase might be cut to get the nice rectangular section of ribs.
So my questions are, where does one get the meatiest pork belly from, where do the best spare ribs come from, should I have cut the skin and fat from the bone instead of cutting the bone away from the rest (to give me meatier spare ribs since ours don't seem very meaty). Maybe I need to find a butcher who slaughters bigger animals? Thoughts y'all?
