St. Louis cut spare ribs variations

njl

I mentioned this in a recent post to a turbo ribs thread, but did some more research and figured this was worthy of its own thread.

Anyway, last spare ribs I cooked was another 3 slab pack from Costco.  This time, Swift Premium.  This was one annoying cut of spare ribs.  All the slabs had multiple long strands of cartilage perpendicular to the rib bones at the top or bottom of the slab (I'm not which which end is up)...and most of the rib bones were only as long as about half the width of the slabs.  Previous spare ribs I've cooked were not like this.

So, I was back in Costco today and examined several packs of St. Louis cut spare ribs.  I knew Costco carried two brands, but couldn't remember their names...so I made note, the bad one is Swift Premium.  The good one is Farmland Foods.  Examining several packs of each, now that I knew what to look for, I could clearly see the perpendicular strands of cartilage and short bones in all the Swift Premium racks.  The Farmland packs had longer bones and in most of them, there appeared to be none of this perpendicular cartilage.

I'm wondering if others have noticed this...and if you normally buy Swift Premium St. Louis style ribs, do you do extra trimming before cooking?

ribnrun

There are two kinds at my Costco. One with the brisket bone removed is the one I liked better. I have bought lots of spares that were untrimmed or partially trimmed. I just cut them the way I like if they don't look right to me. I usually cut off a few ribs on the small end just cuz they usually turn out too dry for my liking. Get yer knife out and hack em up. You can season the trimmings and put em on the egg too. They are done way before the rack and make decent snacks.

OMG Eggs

Ug, I hate it when they call them St. Louis because of how they look vs. How they're cut.  Once you trim, you've got a lot less ribs.  Plus, when they're cryo'ed in multipack, it super hard to check.

 

Thanks for the tip ribnrun!

The Cen-Tex Smoker

It's not the brand that is bad. All spare ribs have the flap meat, the brisket meat and the "extra" bones on the top. That is what spare ribs are. St. Louis style spares are exactly what you describe, spare ribs that are trimmed of the flap, brisket and the small bones on the top of the rack. You can easily trim them yourself with a little practice or just buy St. Lou's of you don't want to bother with it.

njl

The issue is that Costco sells spares labeled as St. Louis cut from at least 2 different suppliers and it seems one of them is doing a better job of trimming than the other.