How To Cut-Up A Pork Butt And Make Country Style Spareribs & Save $$$

Hello All. Thank you for reading my posts I do hope that they are of interest to you. any comments please feel free to leave them. I have control of the delete button. As I have told you in past postings that when I was younger I was a meat cutter. I started working in a small meat department in Coquille, Oregon when I was a junior in high school. I started out as a clean up boy going in after school and working until the store closed at 9:00 pm. It was a great experience. I learned fast and I was fortunate to work for the meat manager who was a good teacher. This is in the day when meat departments received full quarters of beef. This would be back in the late 1960's say around 1966. At that time there was talk of cry-o-vac meat but it was just talk. Today that is all you have in grocery store meat departments. The only way you can find beef on the quarter today is to go to a farmer or a local butcher shop that still gets quarters of beef. The beef then was much better. We would let it hang for about ten days so all of the blood and juice would drain out. Today they kill the animal, let it hang long enough for the fat to coagulate and start processing it. All of that blood and juice and stuff is still in the meat and drains into the cry-o-vac bag. That way the meat business gets to charge you $5.00 a pound for water.

I remained a meat cutter for the next 15 years. Working mainly in retail grocery stores in the Portland, Oregon area. I tired of it and at the age of thirty went to work for my father to learn the upholstery business. That being a whole other story.

Anyway to the task at hand. Because of my training as a meat cutter I like to not spend any more money than I have to at the grocery store. So I look for deals and primal cuts of meat that I can take home and process myself without paying for the marketing that the meat department does. This particular primal is a whole pork butt. This piece of the pig is where the meat department cuts pork steak, pork roasts and those country style boneless spareribs that you will see in the meat counter. I paid a $1.99 a pound for this pork butt at a total of a little over $17.00. Usually the boneless country style spareribs retail for $1.00 more per pound than what I paid. So you can see how with a sharp knife and a little bit of knowledge you can save at the meat department.

As you may know I sell Chicago Cutlery and cookware in my eBay store, AnuDirection.

So iffin' ya don't have a good sharp knife ya might take a look at the offerings that I have. Since we are on the subject of knives I would like to share some knowledge with you. Some of you may or may not know about how to care for and keep your knives sharp. Don't put them in the dishwasher. I know, I know but it takes so long to hand wash them. Poppycock. If you don't know what poppycock means well you probably shouldn't be handling a sharp object anyway. Today's modern manufactured knives, well any with any quality at all have a ground in edge. That edge is what keeps the knife sharp. Regularly running the knife over a steel (that round thing that looks like a file that is in your knife block) that will for the most part keep your knife sharp. It does not hurt them to put them into the dishwasher but what happens is it is likely to get knocked around or bang into other utensils and nick the blade which will cause it to lose its edge. So take the 5 seconds that it takes to hand wash your knife with some hot soapy water and dry it off and put it back into the wood block for which it was made for.

I put the pork butt into the sink and opened up the package. this will let all of the water that you paid $1.99 a pound for go down the drain.

Pat dry the butt (no not your husband) with some paper towels and place it onto a clean cutting board. You want the bone facing you. This bone is shaped something like an "h" and we need to cut it out of the pork butt.

The other end of the bone

If you have the pork butt laying with the fat side down and the bone facing you like I have shown in the photo the bone will be flat on the top side. Take your knife and cut the meat away along the top of the bone. Oh by the way keep your damn fingers out of the way or keep a handy supply of bandages or a tourniquet nearby. Keep cutting and pulling the meat back until you see the edge of the bone.

Now flip the butt (no not your wife) over with the fat side up (again no not your wife). Now we will be cutting around the "h" part. Just keep running your knife along the bone and pulling the meat back with your other hand until you have removed the bone from the pork butt.

The pork butt with the bone removed laying on the cutting board with the fat side down and the face of the butt facing to your right (reverse this process if you are left handed.

With your knife in one hand and holding the meat with the other (with your spouse standing nearby with the tourniquet and 911 on pre-dial) slice down through the pork and towards you trying to keep your cuts as straight as you can. I cut my country style ribs about an inch thick. Here in the picture I made three slices because I want the one end for a pork roast. If you want more country style ribs you don't have to have a roast.

If you have made a roast set it aside and lay the pieces that you are going to make country style ribs with flat on the cutting board. Slice them in tow and sit upright.

Drum Roll....Ta Dah....you have country style spareribs. This butt was fairly large (no I am not referring to either one of you) so I am going to cut them in two to make twice as many ribs as I have.

So I have I pork roast, two packages of six country style ribs for a little over $17.00 and about a half hour of my time. It took me much longer to write this post than it did to do the actual work. There are only two of us in this house so this pork butt serve up at least 10 entrees for us. That works out to $1.70 or less per meal. Add some veggies or a baked potato or what ever else that you want and you have some pretty good eats at a very reasonable price.

I hope that this was helpful to you. If not....what ever

Until we meat (get it meat instead of meet) again

Happy Trails

Duane