Rib eye vs Rib steak

AR_Pork_Producer

This is a question for the beef experts. We raise own cattle and feed out a few calves for slaughter each year. We take them to a processer to have them cut and wrapped. It's getting harder and harder to find a place to do this. We've had to change processers recently and where we were getting rib eye steaks we are now getting rib steaks. He says they are the same thing. Are rib steaks bone in rib eyes? On a beef cut chart they show them as two different cuts. Just trying to find out if we are getting what we a paying for, Thanks for any information.

billyray

True rib steaks are bone in rib eyes. When people say rib eye, they are usually talking about the eye of the rib with the spinalis muscle attached to the top of the eye. Some call this muscle a lifter or cap. A true eye of the rib would just be the center portion without the spinalis.  (butcher from the 60's)

Skiddymarker

billyray said:

True rib steaks are bone in rib eyes. When people say rib eye, they are usually talking about the eye of the rib with the spinalis muscle attached to the top of the eye. Some call this muscle a lifter or cap. A true eye of the rib would just be the center portion without the spinalis.  (butcher from the 60's)

Agrees with what I understand. The whole steak cut from a rib roast with the bone attached is what I call a Cowboy rib steak, take off the bone and it is a rib steak, take off the cap and leave only the eye shaped center and you have a rib eye. 

Austin Egghead

That is the way our butcher explained it to us.  So we opted for bone in steaks.