Spare ribs thickness

[lovelife]

Belly ribs are hard to find where I am from. Baby backs are the common ribs you find if you are looking for pork ribs.

I found a couple meat suppliers that are willing to cut belly ribs for me. I already expect them to cut them as thin as they can otherwise they are stuck with the belly that is too thin to sell. To not waste my money and have them deliver useless thin ribs I was wondering how thick they should be on average so I can let them know in advance what I am looking for.

Thanks guys!

 

[daveomak]

Buy the entire side.....  you get baby backs, St. Louis and belly bacon...   cut your own... meat saws are cheap....

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Or buy the entire side and specify how you want the butcher to cut and wrap it. That's what we do.

 

[lovelife]

Thanks for the replies. This may be an option in the future.

I will be so busy the following months that I would prefer to have the ribs delivered right, for practice and testing recipes and methods.

I'm also not planning to do anything with bellies (for now), so no point for me personally to get the entire side. Appreciate the thoughts though!

Anyone willing to throw some numbers around about what minimum thickness should be? :)

 

[HalfSmoked]

  While your smoking them ribs you could make some great bacon out of the belly meat.