Lots of questions on fabrication St. Louis Style ribs. Thought I would
put a pictorial together on the fabrication of a St. Louis rack out of spares.
One of the first things I want to go over is the selection of the ribs
themselves. St. Louis can not have bone creep (pull back) in the
professional catering world. And since most the cutters we have right now
in the butcher houses are rarely trained, and those in a chain grocery store and
never trained, you have to know how to select the proper ribs to get a good
finished product. You need to use your fingers and kneed the meat to the
bone to see the cover. You need at least 3/8 inch of meat cover to keep
bone creep out of the presentation on the final product.
We are going to start with a decent set of spare ribs. I have selected
these out of 20 in the case (I bought these at the store instead of ordering
from IBP so I could go through the same process as a home smoking enthusiast.)
because they have about 1/2 inch cover on the end of the rib bones.
Now the first thing that has to go is the damn flap of muscle and silver skin
on the rib. This always needs to be trimmed off. Save it for Chile
Verde.
With the flap removed we start seeing the back of the ribs to take a more
professional look in their clean cut appearence.
With the flap removed we then slip a boning knife or a fillet knife under the
membrane and remove it. Some don't remove this membrane. Your ribs
will have a much better mouth feel if you remove this non-digestible membrane.
You have the option of doing the cartilage cut prior to removing the membrane,
just don't forget to do it.
I have left the knife in the cartilage cut so the line of the cut becomes
evident to those who are not familiar with fabrication cuts.
After we remove the meat and bone along the cartilage cut we have finally
arrived at the basic St. Louis. The end where the cartilage was removed
should have the cartilage round ends showing through. This indicates you
cut along the proper line. To find this line it is sometimes helpful in
the beginning to fold the rib up, the fold point that takes place naturally is
the area for the cut. I am using a breaking knife at this point. A
heavy backed knife with a steep cut angle for cutting the tough stuff.
Now we want to count the rib bones. I like 10 to 12 ribs per St. Louis
Rack. Don't go to nine, this is called a cheater in the industry, stay
with 10 to 12 and you will always have full consistent sized ribs. I have
left my boning knife in the gap between the three I removed and the St. Louis
fabrication so everyone can see the line that is cut. Remember to cut out
closest to the bone on the removal side so you have plenty of meat cover on the
end of the rack.
Now that the basic St. Louis is fabricated we still have some cleaning up to
do. Because there are damn few butchers actually cutting meat anymore, you
will have to remove excess meat, fat, and silver skin to create a St. Louis rib
worth presenting to guests.
I remove silver skin with a boning or fillet knife. It allows me to slip
along between the protein and the nasty membrane tissue and fillet it off.
Depending on who the cutter was, you can have a lot of nastiness to remove.
Barbarians are in charge of cutting anymore at the packing houses, so all manner
of crap that should be thrown out is still hooked to the cut. The better
the cleaning the better the final product.
Of course they leave it on cause you are going to pay $1.99 per pound for it.
And they would rather you take the loss, because they know most people don't
really know it is wrong. I cut my own St. Louis for this same reason, I
will not pay more per pound to have someone cut off parts of the spare that have
less training in butchery than I do.
In the end if you fabricate your own, or know what to look for when selecting
already fabricated St. Louis you will end up with a nice clean, squared off
product that should produce an excellent smoking experience and final product.
Now the section on top of the cartilage is excellent for a smoking testing.
That is to say, you already have the fire going, might at well use the riblet
section to do your testing and experiments.
Of course I have already seasoned these with the experiment. And the
next pic is of those St. Louis waiting to have the magic of oak and hickory
added to them to produce that wonderful product we so all enjoy!
And while they are in the charbroil offset, the wife and I enjoy our new
cement patio deck. Wine in the finally above freezing weather.
I hope this helps a few of you to start to take spares and fabricate your own
St. Louis Style rib racks. I think you will find your product improving
greatly if you start taking control of the fabrication.
Yours in good smoking, bbally
put a pictorial together on the fabrication of a St. Louis rack out of spares.
One of the first things I want to go over is the selection of the ribs
themselves. St. Louis can not have bone creep (pull back) in the
professional catering world. And since most the cutters we have right now
in the butcher houses are rarely trained, and those in a chain grocery store and
never trained, you have to know how to select the proper ribs to get a good
finished product. You need to use your fingers and kneed the meat to the
bone to see the cover. You need at least 3/8 inch of meat cover to keep
bone creep out of the presentation on the final product.
We are going to start with a decent set of spare ribs. I have selected
these out of 20 in the case (I bought these at the store instead of ordering
from IBP so I could go through the same process as a home smoking enthusiast.)
because they have about 1/2 inch cover on the end of the rib bones.
Now the first thing that has to go is the damn flap of muscle and silver skin
on the rib. This always needs to be trimmed off. Save it for Chile
Verde.
With the flap removed we start seeing the back of the ribs to take a more
professional look in their clean cut appearence.
With the flap removed we then slip a boning knife or a fillet knife under the
membrane and remove it. Some don't remove this membrane. Your ribs
will have a much better mouth feel if you remove this non-digestible membrane.
You have the option of doing the cartilage cut prior to removing the membrane,
just don't forget to do it.
I have left the knife in the cartilage cut so the line of the cut becomes
evident to those who are not familiar with fabrication cuts.
After we remove the meat and bone along the cartilage cut we have finally
arrived at the basic St. Louis. The end where the cartilage was removed
should have the cartilage round ends showing through. This indicates you
cut along the proper line. To find this line it is sometimes helpful in
the beginning to fold the rib up, the fold point that takes place naturally is
the area for the cut. I am using a breaking knife at this point. A
heavy backed knife with a steep cut angle for cutting the tough stuff.
Now we want to count the rib bones. I like 10 to 12 ribs per St. Louis
Rack. Don't go to nine, this is called a cheater in the industry, stay
with 10 to 12 and you will always have full consistent sized ribs. I have
left my boning knife in the gap between the three I removed and the St. Louis
fabrication so everyone can see the line that is cut. Remember to cut out
closest to the bone on the removal side so you have plenty of meat cover on the
end of the rack.
Now that the basic St. Louis is fabricated we still have some cleaning up to
do. Because there are damn few butchers actually cutting meat anymore, you
will have to remove excess meat, fat, and silver skin to create a St. Louis rib
worth presenting to guests.
I remove silver skin with a boning or fillet knife. It allows me to slip
along between the protein and the nasty membrane tissue and fillet it off.
Depending on who the cutter was, you can have a lot of nastiness to remove.
Barbarians are in charge of cutting anymore at the packing houses, so all manner
of crap that should be thrown out is still hooked to the cut. The better
the cleaning the better the final product.
Of course they leave it on cause you are going to pay $1.99 per pound for it.
And they would rather you take the loss, because they know most people don't
really know it is wrong. I cut my own St. Louis for this same reason, I
will not pay more per pound to have someone cut off parts of the spare that have
less training in butchery than I do.
In the end if you fabricate your own, or know what to look for when selecting
already fabricated St. Louis you will end up with a nice clean, squared off
product that should produce an excellent smoking experience and final product.
Now the section on top of the cartilage is excellent for a smoking testing.
That is to say, you already have the fire going, might at well use the riblet
section to do your testing and experiments.
Of course I have already seasoned these with the experiment. And the
next pic is of those St. Louis waiting to have the magic of oak and hickory
added to them to produce that wonderful product we so all enjoy!
And while they are in the charbroil offset, the wife and I enjoy our new
cement patio deck. Wine in the finally above freezing weather.
I hope this helps a few of you to start to take spares and fabricate your own
St. Louis Style rib racks. I think you will find your product improving
greatly if you start taking control of the fabrication.
Yours in good smoking, bbally
