British BBQ Society Forums

So, I decided to smoke some ribs on my Weber kettle. Our local butcher has previously come up with a decent pork butt for pulled pork, and a brisket, and seems to generally half an OK understanding of cuts of meat you might want to smoke.

As my wife was going to have to pop in to get the meat, and she worries that she might get the wrong thing, I phoned ahead to check that they'd have some ribs ready. I was originally planing on getting baby-back ribs, so asked about this, and the guy didn't sound like he knew what I meant... said something like "yeah, pork ribs, spare ribs, yeah". I thought rather than confuse the issue I'd happily just go with spare ribs, and told him my wife would be down to pick them up later.

When she went down, he suggested one and half racks for 6 people, which seemed reasonable (we were doing some chicken wings and stuff too) and she came back with the two cuts shown below.

Now, from what I can see, these don't look much like the standard spare rib cut. I know that when not trimmed to a St Louis, the tips give a fair bit of extra meat that isn't "on the rib" as such, but this is like 1/3 rib at most, and the half basically had none - just some of the white cartilage.

So the upside was we had loads of meat to eat - far more than we needed in fact. And it tasted fine (took a good 6 hours to smoke, mind). But it wasn't really the rack of ribs I'd been hoping to serve up to my guests!

Do these look normal? The whole shape of the cut looks odd to me - the ribs being at an angle to the cut - am I just imagining that? Is it a UK thing (given that pretty much everything you find on the internet about bbq cuts is American)?

Looks like a weird cut belly with a small rib section to me. Like they have cut the belly and then cut a bit off the end for you. Whole bellys normally have more ribs than that. Not quite what you wanted.
You'd normally cut the rib out to make it look pretty but it doesn't matter. Still taste great.
Only thing is that a whole belly would normally be cheaper.

You want loin ribs for baby backs. Or belly ribs for spares.

Thanks Essexsmoker - finding the UK terminology is tricky, but now I'm armed with Loin ribs and belly ribs!
I had similar issues trying to explain a Boston Butt!

I'm new to the forum - don't know if there's any general discussions of locations of good butchers for bbq cuts? Would be great to find a local one who knew just what to provide! (In case anybvody local is reading, I'm in High Peak - just outside Mancehster)

No that isn't a normal cut for ribs here. Did they know what you wanted them for?

wade wrote:No that isn't a normal cut for ribs here. Did they know what you wanted them for?

Yeah, told them they were to smoke on the bbq. Not sure if they'd cut them specifically after I called, or just had the cut already done.

Definitely need to find a butcher that's a bit more familiar with this stuff!

That looks like a weird cut full stop.

Hey Dan

Try Albert Matthews in Bury, they are very good. Ask for Chris Matthews mention the forum and me Brian Smith.

I know when Macro sell me a full belly (skin on that I use for curing bacon ) theirs are trimmed to include the ribs you are looking at but the none rib end is longer in section. I think they have given you half a belly, bone end in with the skin trimmed off. Its defo not a rack of belly ribs