It had been awhile since I’d done ribs on my Big Green Egg, but with the weather hovering around ~70 degrees I decided Saturday was a perfect day to fire up the cooker.  So off to the store I went for some ribs.  When I got there, all that was available were spare ribs.  Now I usualy cook baby backs but didn’t feel like hunting all over town for them so I just went with St Louis style spare ribs.

 What’s the difference?  Well, baby backs come from “high on the hog” and are typically smaller and more tender.  Spareribs on the other hand come from the belly of the hog, are larger, and typically have more fat.  You also have to deal with a flap of meat on the bone side of spare ribs and a strip of meat and cartilage along the edge.  You can find spareribs with the extra flap and cartilage removed by the butcher.  These trimmed spareribs are often referred to as “St. Louis Style”.

While the spare ribs turned out okay, my family let me know in no uncertain terms that they prefer the “other kind”.  So from now on, I’ll stick to baby back ribs even if I have to chase all over town to find them.

Cheers,
Braddog

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