Yesterday I came across a great tutorial by “Mr. Bob” who writes The Hog Blog.  Mr. Bob does a fantastic job showing how to trim ribs into St. Louis cut.  Please take a look.  If you are interested in Competition BBQ then hop on over to The Hog Blog and check out his other great tutorials.

The Hog Blog is a resrouce for compteition bbq & bbq recipes enthusiasts across the world. We provide weekly articles about special topics like competition set up tips, bbq’n ins & outs and recipes for rubs, sauces & much more.

Two racks in a cryovac weighing a little over 10 pounds.

Open them up and put the first rack on the cutting board.

Flip it over and take hold of the flap.

Hold your knife parallel to the cutting board and slice off the flap as close to the bones as possible. Make sure you save the flap and all your trimmings!

And this is how they should look with the flap removed.

Now carefully slide a butter knife between the bone and the membrane.

Lift with the back of the knife to separate the membrane.

Using a paper towel for grip, grab the membrane and carefully start to pull it off.

With a little practice, it will come off in one piece.

Now locate the longest bone on the rack and insert the tip of your knife.

Cut down the length of the rack to get a nice even slab.

Repeat the process with the other rack, remove the breast bones and trim all the loose ends from the rib tips and this is what you should end up with.

I have to admit when Char-Broil first contacted me to come out to Memphis In May and do some cooking demonstrations one of the first thoughts I had was that someone was going to pay me to fly out and eat at Interstate Bar-B-Q.

For a BBQ enthusiast there are a select group of “famous” restaurants that are must eat ats.  And for me Interstate Bar-B-Q was high on my list.  And as hard as it is for me to say I’ve got to admit that it may have been one of the biggest BBQ disappointments I’ve ever had.

There are a variety of negative reasons why I don’t eat in BBQ restaurants very often.  And I don’t think Interstate BBQ missed a single reason.  Everything I dislike about most BBQ restaurants was encapulated in one meal.

Go figure…who would have thought that one of America’s most celebrated BBQ establishments was my first Memphis In May disappointment.   Dang, I’m sad writing this.  I so wanted a good BBQ experience and I didn’t get it.

As I am like to do when eating at a BBQ restaurant for the first time I ordered the sample platter.  This was one of the biggest sample platters I’ve ever seen.  It came with chopped pork shoulder, chopped brisket, pork ribs, beef ribs, sausage.  And every bit of it was drenched in bbq sauce.  There was so much bbq sauce on the plate that the plate resembled a little swimming pool of red sauce.  It must have just been ladled over the meat after it had been piled up.

I cannot even begin to describe the disappointment I felt when the plate of luke warm soaking wet meat was sat down in front of me.  Nineteen hundred miles I came to eat at the world famous Interstate Bar-B-Q and I got food that could be purchased at any local, “cook once or twice a week and reheat” BBQ restaurant.

The chopped pork and chopped brisket lacked any flavor outside of the sauce.  I couldn’t taste the smoke at all.  If I had not smelled the smoke when I first walked into the place I would have sworn the meat wasn’t smoked.  The sausage was flavorful and had a nice “bite” to it with the natural casing.

I got two pork ribs and two beef ribs with the sample platter.  The pork ribs were soft, mushy and fall of the bone.  Not the way I like them at all, but probably the way most people want their ribs.  Without a doubt the biggest disappointment of a disappointing meal were the beef ribs.  The beef ribs were not edible at all.  The membrane was not removed and there was not way you could bite into them and the meat was so over cooked you couldn’t even get the meat off the membrane with a knife and fork.

The sides weren’t all the much better.  The beans looked as though they had been kept under a heat lamp for hours in the little white bowls they are served in.  The cole slaw was average at best.

The famous Interstate BBQ spaghetti was tasty, but lacked any real reason to get excited about it.  Over cooked pasta covered in sauce with a little meat isn’t anything to I’d recommend. 

You know you’ve got problems when not one person out of 8 finished their meal.  What do you do when the only thing that tasted like you would expect it to taste like is the plain white bread served with each meal.

Some of the people in our group thought that the reason the food was as bad as it was may have been due to it being the end of the day and everything had been kept in hotel pans all day on a steam table.  Now I don’t know about the steam table, but the food sure had the texture that meat has when it’s been kept “warm” all day.  But even if that was the case doesn’t a restaurant have an obligation to make sure the food served in the evening is the same quality as when they first open?  We paid the same price, we should have gotten the same quality. 

And for the first time ever, we were denied a chance to look at the pits.  I’ve never, ever been told I couldn’t see the pits in a restaurant.  Makes me wonder about things.

So that’s my first Memphis BBQ experience.  I figure it’s going to get better because it certainly can’t get any worse than it was tonight.