Barrel & Ashes in Studio City--eh

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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Bruce, thanks for the response. I agree that leaving hungry after spending $40 at a BBQ joint is definitely an issue.

Commodity pork is extremely uniform across the board as far as yield is concerned. For example back rib racks pretty much run only a couple of ounces +/- of three pounds. I wonder why your experience had such markedly little meat.

Anyway, I am struggling with pork rib pricing. Basically a vast majority of ribs are now priced per pound vs. rack/half rack a 5X multiple of wholesale case pricing. I am kind of adverse to this as ribs have so much throw away bone vs. meat whereas briskets and shoulders are essentially 100% consumable. Both of them are still priced at that 5X multiple, however.

I am leaning strongly toward a straightforward rack pricing with the consumer getting the plus side of any weight discrepancies. Let’s say a rack is three pounds at $3 a pound in a case purchase. That is nine bucks my cost before rub, fuel and overhead cost. What should I charge…$45 ($15 a pound)? That to me is absurd, but a realistic representation of pricing. Brisket and shoulder render quite a bit of fat, so their is a measurable loss that needs to be accounted for in a per pound price.

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Indeed, that is the struggle. I didn’t pull out my portable scale to weigh my portion, but just from the looks of it it appeared smaller in size than I would expect. And I was more than a bit offended by the attempt to make it look more substantial by plating it on a metal serving platter that in turn took up much of the room on the plate. Had it been plated directly onto the plate, it would have been even more obvious how undersized it was for a “half rack.”

In any event, I realize that ordering pork (or beef) ribs means you’ll end up paying $$ for something that has a lot of inedible mass–that’s part of the deal.

Bruce