I like to trim my spare ribs down to what is called a St. Louis Style Rib.  By cutting pork spare ribs down to St. Louis style you get a more uniform rack of ribs.  St. Louis style ribs make cooking and serving them much easier.  More St. Louis style ribs fit on the smoker and they are easier to tell when done.

St. Louis style ribs are prepared by removing the cartilage from the “top” of each rib rack.  If you go to a BBQ restaurant and order “rib tips” this is where they’ve come from.  Some meat processors sell these “rib tips” by the case.  It can be an economical way to serve ribs to large groups.

When you trim lots of racks of ribs you end up with quite a few freezer bags full of trimmings.  One of the most common questions asked on BBQ forums is “what do you do with your rib trimmings?  There’s a lot of different techniques/recipes for rib trimmings.  Here’s one of the ways we utilize rib trimmings at are house. (Click each picture to enlarge.)

Place all your rib trimmings in the crockpot.

Add a can of green enchilada sauce and cook until tender

Shred the pork. Make sure you discard all fat and cartilage

After straining the liquid and removing the fat reduce on the stove.

Reduce the liquid from the crockpot down to a thick "syrup" consistency.

Add the reduced liquid back to the shredded pork and mix well.

Take your uncooked tortillas and poke holes all over them.

Place your tortilla over a small bowl and bake at 400 degrees until brown

Now you've got a bowl. Fill it with the pork and all the fixings.

**I use Tortilla Land uncooked tortillas.  These tortillas can be purchased at Costco and provide a great fresh tortilla that compliments your food.

***The rib tips were in the crock pot on low for about 8 hours.  Make sure you get all the fat drained out of the meat.  One great way of removing the fat is to cook the meat the day before and put the liquid in the refrigerator, after it cools.  The fat will congeal on top and you can easily remove it.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

When you cook ribs have you ever noticed the skin like layer on the bone side of your rack of ribs?  If you’ve never removed it you’re short changing yourself on making the most flavorful ribs possible.  The membrane will keep your seasoning flavors and smoke from penetrating the meat on that side of the rack.  And after cooking the membrane gets hard and is difficult to chew.

At first you’ll get a little frustrated trying to remove the membrane.  But with  practice you’ll get the hang of it.  Here’s a short step by step primer on how to do it.

The easiest way to remove the membrane is if you can get it all done in one piece. No sharp knives or other utensils that might cut the membrane should be used. Explore along the edge of the rib rack for an area that will allow you to get a butter knife or the handle end of a spoon between the membrane and the meat.

Carefully work your utensil underneath the membrane until you have enough raised membrane to grab. Using a paper towel will make it much easier to hold on to the slippery membrane. Slowly start pulling the membrane off.

Once the membrane starts to pull easily work your way down the rack of ribs. Don't pull to hard, you don't want to tear the membrane off in the middle of the rack. It's much harder to get it restarted when this happens than it was at the beginning. With the membrane removed you have a nice meat surface to season, smoke and sauce, giving you a much better tasting rib.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

I’ve wanted to eat at Pat’s BBQ in Salt Lake City ever sinse seeing the restaurant on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” on the Food Network.  I’m not sure what it was about the show that made this a must eat at place for me, but I knew the next time I was in SLC I would be paying the place a visit.  When I first turned down Commonwealth Ave and headed down to the end of the street I just knew I was end for a treat.  Good BBQ establishments are found off the beaten path.  And certainly Pat’s was.  My wife and friend’s first response was “there’s no restaurant down this street.”  But sure enough there it was.

When you first walk into Pat’s you know this is a legit BBQ restaurant.  The smell of smoke and meat greets you as soon as you walk in the front door.  It just smells like BBQ.  To many times over the years I’ve walked into BBQ restaurants and there is no indication they serve BBQ.  That’s not the case with Pat’s.  It’s BBQ through and through.  From the pictures on the walls to the picnic tables with buckets of plastic silverware and rolls of paper towels.

I ordered, as did my wife and guests, the three meat combos.  Between the four of us we had most of the meats and sides covered.  I was a little disappointed they were out of the mustard greens I ordered.

Three meat combo. Pork spares, brisket and pulled pork.

Since the sauce was in squeeze bottles on the table I was confident Pat’s would not make the cardinal mistake of a lousy BBQ restaurants, meat that comes to the table sauced.  And sure enough the meat came naked.  No sauce.  The pulled pork was juicy without being mushy from overcooking or warming.  It had a nice flavor in addition to a smoke ring and real honest to goodness “bark” on the meat.

The brisket was good.  It was tender and had a very mild smoke flavor.  Again, a smoke ring and nice bark told me this was really smoked brisket.  I like my brisket a little more fatty than served at Pat’s.  But, the brisket served was far from dry.

Of the three meats the ribs were my least favorite.  Pat’s serves untrimmed, full pork spare ribs.  The flavor was excellent.  Just like everything else the flavor was just meat, seasonings and smoke.  But they were just a tad undercooked.  Not raw, mind you, they just came off the smoker a little to soon.  The meat was a little chewy and didn’t come off the bones as clean as it should.  I’m not a fan of “fall of the bone” overcooked ribs, but on a properly cooked rib the meat should come off the bone with a little tug of the teeth.

Two sauces are served at Pat’s.  Mild and a “Sweet & Hot” sauce.  The “Sweet & Hot” was fantastic.  The sweet hit the front of the tongue immediately while there was just a little heat on the back of the tongue.  Great sauce that complimented all three meats.  The “mild” sauce was very, very mild.  Almost void of flavor.  But that is probably just because of my palate.  My wife and guests enjoyed it.  Oh, and the corn bread was good too!

Cole Slaw and Red Beans & Rice

Close up of the cole slaw

Between us we had cole slaw, red beans & rice, mash potatoes & gravy and bbq beans.  The sides were awesome.  The cole slaw had a great deal of flavor and was not drowned like most slaws in liquid.  The flavor would have been perfect on top of a pulled pork sammie.  The red beans & rice were good, but did lack the kick normally in the dish.  The mash potatoes were fresh and covered with brown gravy that must have been made with brisket drippings.  I don’t normally associate mash potatoes with BBQ but these worked quite nice.  The BBQ Beans had the appearance of “doctored” canned beans but didn’t have the normal mushy consistency canned beans get.  They were flavorful and loaded with meat.

You can follow Pat’s BBQ on Facebook.  Don’t let their Facebook page fool you though.  They are proud of their food, even though the five night a week entertainment seems to get top billing over the food.   You can read more about Pat’s BBQ at www.patsbbq.com.

How good was Pat’s?  Well, I’ve eaten at a lot of BBQ restaurants and I’d only return to a handful.  And Pat’s is one of those I would go back to.

© 2009 – 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.