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Soft Rib Bones????

Wornslick

Wornslick

is one Smokin' Farker
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I cooked a slab of St. Louis spares last Sunday and something strange happened while eating one of the ribs, and it happened again today as I was trying another one on the way back to work. While taking a bite from the rib I got a piece of the bone in the same bite. It was on the cartilage end and the bone was extremely soft, easy to bite through, same texture as the meat. What would cause this?

Old meat, frozen to long? The spares were not in cry-o-vac but rather wrapped in plastic, in one of those foam trays that you see in Grocery stores, packed by them. Any ideas?
icon_e_confused.gif
 
I do not wrap my ribs, but I have found the bones of other people's wrapped ribs are soft compared to unwrapped. Steaming is used to soften bone for shaping it for projects.
 
Ribs wasn't wrapped, both cooked on a Stumps Baby, 235-245 degrees until they passed the bend test. I wonder if it has anything to do with the pigs age?

Just throwing that idea out there. :confused:
 
Was it a McRib?

No idea...Maybe it was from a fatty area of the rib and was boiling in the fat during the cook...
 
Chewy bones that break off like that usually signify overcooked meat to me. Dunno if they are actually caustically related, but they are definitely correlated in my experiences.
 
Blah64 said:
Chewy bones that break off like that usually signify overcooked meat to me. Dunno if they are actually caustically related, but they are definitely correlated in my experiences.
Click to expand...

Could have been overcooked but if they were it wasn't by much. They were on around 5 hours at the temp I mentioned. When I did the bend test they just started to tear in the middle, but I cannot say what the interior temp of the rib was.
 
In my experience in the restaurant industry bones that become soft or brittle are from all the gelatin/marrow/collagen being extracted out of them. For instance, sometime to see if we've extracted all we can from veal bones for a stock we will take the bones and see if we can't snap them in half by hand. I have also heard that when making fish stocks some chefs will actually puree some of the bones into the stock for sauces. With the rib bones not being very large or dense and having been cooked for a long time i wouldn't be surprised that this isn't more common. My guess is the blame lies with the animal itself and the cooking process.
 
So maybe I am cooking my ribs at to low a temperature. I have tried going at a higher temp before but the ribs seem to get a little tough on the outside. Next cook I will try 250-275 for 4 hours.
 
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