By Dylan Clay
Click a Pork rib to Learn More
Pigs will generally have 15-16 rib bones; When butchered, 2-3 bones are left in the shoulder.
The ribs are then separated into 10-13 bone slabs of baby back ribs and spare ribs.
Baby back ribs come from the upper part of the rib cage, where the ribs and the spine meet.
They’re rather lean like loin meat, but also super tender.
Baby backs are often the most expensive rib cut simply due to marketing.
Chili’s! Baby back ribs! – is a good example.
With baby back ribs, you should look for even thickness throughout the rack as well as even fat marbling.
Preparation is typically as simple as taking out of the package and patting dry.
You could also opt to remove the membrane or score it.
Typically they’ll finish in 4-6 hours.
Spareribs are what remains after the pork belly is removed.
They’re more flavorful, more meaty, but less tender than baby backs.
The fat also makes them less susceptible to drying out, unlike baby backs.
Due to the more extensive collagen and connective tissue, they also take longer to smoke; Roughly 5-6 hours.
Depending on how they’re butchered, they will typically contain about 1/4″ of meat.
The more meat left on the ribs means less bacon yield for the butcher.
Since Bacon is where Butchers make their money, it means less meat on spare ribs.
“St. Louis cut” refers to a style of trimming of spare ribs.
They’re also called “center cut” ribs because it removes the sternum and rib tip in order to square the rack.
The Rib tip contains lots of cartilage which people don’t like to chew around but they do contain a lot of the “meat.”
Country Style Ribs come from the pork loin – typically the first 2-4 ribs that are left in the shoulder.
They’re essentially just a chunk of loin meat.
Here’s this section of a whole pork loin cut into pork “ribeye steaks.”
If we were to cut these in half, they’d be country style ribs.
Often these will be really cheap, often $1/lb cheaper than baby back ribs, even though they’re the same cut of meat.
These aren’t super popular but are sold Online by Butcheries like Snake River Farms.
They’re essentially the whole country style ribs with the bones in-tact and no trimming.
They look eerily similar to “Dino Ribs” or “short ribs” from a cow.
