How do you cut country style ribs?

[mikeythai]

I tried to cut some country style ribs from a small butt that I bought the other day. The results were less than good. Anyone have a link or suggestion?

 

[rbranstner]

Normally I just buy country style ribs from the store with the bone already in them. Were you trying to make country style ribs by cutting a pork butt up? True country style ribs come from the sirloin or rib end of the pork loin.

 

[mikeythai]

Yeah, I can't buy country style ribs where I live. So I got a boneless butt and tried cutting it up.

I googled a bunch of different ways, and came up with a nice history of the cut... You're right, true country style ribs are from the loin, but I think they got so popular that they started cutting them from the shoulder, too.

I think. Anyway that's what I want to try.

 

[glgoodwin]

What kind of trouble did you have? I was thinking about doing the same thing and just wonder what I need to look out for.

 

[mballi3011]

It sounds to me like you and your knifes need to visit the knife sharping department of your local knife getting place. You should be able to just cut them like a good chunk of butter. Well here's an idea put the meat in the freezer for about 30 minutes and then it should sticken up enough for you to cut it up into ribs size chunks.

 

[mikeythai]

Okay, maybe I've been overthinking it. Rib sized chunks it is!

 

[chef k-dude]

This is a really old thread and I see the thread starter did get some help.

I found this thread with the same question. I will be a little more detailed.

I just started doing this. A local grocer had big pork butts (shoulder…I don’t know why meat purveyors can’t just call a cut of meat what it is…but that’s another topic) for 99¢a pound recently, and I always jump on a deal like that to keep my freezer stocked in pulled pork.

Well, the issue is, I have plenty of pulled pork already in the freezer, so I didn’t really need to smoke any more at the moment. But, I had the same idea, “why not cut my own CSR’s”.

I butcher whole cuts of meat, birds, bear leg, deer quarters, etc. pretty frequently. I prefer doing it all myself…something about the “hands-on” aspect of eating cuts of meat I cut myself…plus I grind almost all of my own meat, that way I know what I’m eating came from the DNA of a single animal. I also like being able to cut meats exactly like I want them…especially my favorite steak, the strip…I buy a whole loin and hand cut all my steaks.

So the bone in pork shoulder has…a bone obviously. mballi3011’s advice was good, but didn’t really address the whole piece of shoulder. A knife, no matter how sharp, is not going to cut the bone. A cleaver maybe, but not a good meat cutting knife. The professional butcher uses a band saw to make quick work of the shoulder to rip slabs of meat and bone, then lay the slabs down and rip into somewhere around 1 ½” square long chunks or “rib” shapes.

Although I do butcher a lot of my own meat, I don’t have a band saw for cutting meat…but I have been known to take a reciprocating saw to a bear leg to cut it in to pieces that will fit my freezers! Too much gangster television maybe, but its effective! So is a hack saw, but I love me some power tools…

So, what I did, was grab the shoulder, and feel with my fingers for the bone, take my fine and freshly sharpened and honed carving knife and begin to cut in a logical location near the bone. When I hit slight resistance of the bone, I took the point of the knife and did a bit of poking or “exploratory surgery” to see where that bone was “headed”, then simply cut around the area the bone was clearly in.

I carved off the main portions of the meat and set aside, then with a smaller knife cut any major chunks left on the bone off, but left some meat in the bends and nooks and crannies of the bones.

I saved those meaty bones, made pork stock until the meat was falling off the bone, saved that meat and pulled it by hand and discarded the bones and the stock vegetables…then proceeded to make an excellent pork soup with the stock and bone meat…and new vegetables rather than the stock vegetables.

I took the major portions of meat I cut off the bone and cut those about 1 to 1 ½” thick, then laid them down and cut 1 ½” cuts through that, making “CSR” sized “sticks” or strips of meat. I trimmed off excess fat where it made sense.

I took almost all the fat and all the trimmings from the prime Country Style Ribs I had cut, mixed that with all the other random chunks of meat that I cut away from the bone, cut it all in to 1” cubes and ran it though the medium die on my meat grinder for ground pork!

The ground pork makes excellent meatloaf, stuffed peppers, etc…and my favorite use for ground pork is Asian food.

I smoked those CSR cuts just like I know how to do

See here: http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/235421/smoked-country-style-pork-ribs

That is an existing thread I made here a while back. The hand cut CSRs came out absolutely no different than anything I have bought pre-cut…except they were boneless.

I will probably do this a lot in the future. I think I like CSRs as much as back ribs. They cook fast enough, they are almost fool proof and everyone loves them…AND they can be eaten with a fork…AND other than the small about of bone, you are not paying as much for bone as you are for standard rib rack cuts. And unlike rib bones than usually go in the trash, the shoulder bone in this case is utilized for a great stock and soup….AND I get home ground pork from the scraps.

It’s a win, win, win…win situation.

In the immortal words of Charlie Sheen…Winning!

Sorry…no pics. I’m not as enthused about doing Q-views on this site anymore…they get a few comments then disappear from the boards…unless you are one of the site elite of course. I’m working on my own blog but I won’t link it here because they don’t like that.

I am all about the free exchange of knowledge, so I’ll post stuff like this to help anyone it might help, and as I create my blog posts I might mirror them here, but I do a lot more than just smoking meat so this forum is a relatively narrow culinary focus compared to all I do. I appreciate it though.

I learned a lot early on from Jeff and I encourage folks to check out his recipes and the sponsor products. If you want to skip the DIY and R&D, it can help you get where you want to go faster.

 

[phonedrn8]

good info on this.. love me some csr plate

 

[floridasteve]

This is a really old thread and I see the thread starter did get some help.

I found this thread with the same question. I will be a little more detailed.

I just started doing this. A local grocer had big pork butts (shoulder…I don’t know why meat purveyors can’t just call a cut of meat what it is…but that’s another topic) for 99¢a pound recently, and I always jump on a deal like that to keep my freezer stocked in pulled pork.

Well, the issue is, I have plenty of pulled pork already in the freezer, so I didn’t really need to smoke any more at the moment. But, I had the same idea, “why not cut my own CSR’s”.

I butcher whole cuts of meat, birds, bear leg, deer quarters, etc. pretty frequently. I prefer doing it all myself…something about the “hands-on” aspect of eating cuts of meat I cut myself…plus I grind almost all of my own meat, that way I know what I’m eating came from the DNA of a single animal. I also like being able to cut meats exactly like I want them…especially my favorite steak, the strip…I buy a whole loin and hand cut all my steaks.

So the bone in pork shoulder has…a bone obviously. mballi3011’s advice was good, but didn’t really address the whole piece of shoulder. A knife, no matter how sharp, is not going to cut the bone. A cleaver maybe, but not a good meat cutting knife. The professional butcher uses a band saw to make quick work of the shoulder to rip slabs of meat and bone, then lay the slabs down and rip into somewhere around 1 ½” square long chunks or “rib” shapes.

Although I do butcher a lot of my own meat, I don’t have a band saw for cutting meat…but I have been known to take a reciprocating saw to a bear leg to cut it in to pieces that will fit my freezers! Too much gangster television maybe, but its effective! So is a hack saw, but I love me some power tools…

So, what I did, was grab the shoulder, and feel with my fingers for the bone, take my fine and freshly sharpened and honed carving knife and begin to cut in a logical location near the bone. When I hit slight resistance of the bone, I took the point of the knife and did a bit of poking or “exploratory surgery” to see where that bone was “headed”, then simply cut around the area the bone was clearly in.

I carved off the main portions of the meat and set aside, then with a smaller knife cut any major chunks left on the bone off, but left some meat in the bends and nooks and crannies of the bones.

I saved those meaty bones, made pork stock until the meat was falling off the bone, saved that meat and pulled it by hand and discarded the bones and the stock vegetables…then proceeded to make an excellent pork soup with the stock and bone meat…and new vegetables rather than the stock vegetables.

I took the major portions of meat I cut off the bone and cut those about 1 to 1 ½” thick, then laid them down and cut 1 ½” cuts through that, making “CSR” sized “sticks” or strips of meat. I trimmed off excess fat where it made sense.

I took almost all the fat and all the trimmings from the prime Country Style Ribs I had cut, mixed that with all the other random chunks of meat that I cut away from the bone, cut it all in to 1” cubes and ran it though the medium die on my meat grinder for ground pork!

The ground pork makes excellent meatloaf, stuffed peppers, etc…and my favorite use for ground pork is Asian food.

I smoked those CSR cuts just like I know how to do

See here: http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/235421/smoked-country-style-pork-ribs

That is an existing thread I made here a while back. The hand cut CSRs came out absolutely no different than anything I have bought pre-cut…except they were boneless.

I will probably do this a lot in the future. I think I like CSRs as much as back ribs. They cook fast enough, they are almost fool proof and everyone loves them…AND they can be eaten with a fork…AND other than the small about of bone, you are not paying as much for bone as you are for standard rib rack cuts. And unlike rib bones than usually go in the trash, the shoulder bone in this case is utilized for a great stock and soup….AND I get home ground pork from the scraps.

It’s a win, win, win…win situation.

In the immortal words of Charlie Sheen…Winning!

Sorry…no pics. I’m not as enthused about doing Q-views on this site anymore…they get a few comments then disappear from the boards…unless you are one of the site elite of course. I’m working on my own blog but I won’t link it here because they don’t like that.

I am all about the free exchange of knowledge, so I’ll post stuff like this to help anyone it might help, and as I create my blog posts I might mirror them here, but I do a lot more than just smoking meat so this forum is a relatively narrow culinary focus compared to all I do. I appreciate it though.

I learned a lot early on from Jeff and I encourage folks to check out his recipes and the sponsor products. If you want to skip the DIY and R&D, it can help you get where you want to go faster.

I’m so glad I found this thread. I have a butt in the fridge that I was going to try and cut some CSR, grind some for bratwurst and make pork vegy soup with the leftovers.

 

[daniels]

(shoulder…I don’t know why meat purveyors can’t just call a cut of meat what it is…but that’s another topic)

I agree although there was a movement among butchers a while back to stop erroneously calling them pork butts since the butts are the barrels the pork shoulders were shipped in many, many years ago. I have noticed that Walmart puts both names on the package labels.

Personally, I refuse to smoke pork butts because I can never get the wood barrels tender enough. I prefer pork shoulders. :D

 

[chef k-dude]

Interesting history on Butts, I never thought to look that up. I just figured butchers are like welders, macho to a fault and weird nicknames for everything! I dont think I could get an actual Butt in my MES30...

I still do this as described above probably a couple times a year. I've lost my craving for pulled pork oddly enough. I've already made "Q" as good as any I've tasted here in central Virginia...maybe I ate too much and had my fill.

Haven't smoked a whole shoulder in at least couple years. But I still cut country rib primes, smoke then set sauce on the grill. I grind all the off-cuts and I'm in to making chorizo with that these days...mostly used in quesadillas.