I've been barbecuing ribs for years now, and I'm always searching for my ideal pork supplier. My criteria, in no particular order: pasture-raised, humane, sustainable, local, meaty (no shiners!), full-flavored, uniform. I've purchased pork from many local NY farms, but I thought I'd put a few of my favorites to a taste test this past weekend. The candidates? Sir William Berkshire in Dutchess County, Flying Pigs Farm in Shushan NY, and Kinderhook Farm in Ghent NY. They were all at the tops of the scale, but the newbie to the bunch won out in this test. Who is the newbie? Pork out with me to find out! 

I was able to score multiple slabs of spare ribs from each farm. The shot above is of three representative slabs of the group: Sir William Berkshire at the top, Flying Pigs in the middle, and Kinderhook Farm at the bottom. 

I fired up the Weber Smokey Mountain 22incher with a 3/4-full pan of Stubb's charcoal, a half filled chimney of lit coals, three 3' x12' logs of apple wood from Samscott Orchards in Kinderhook, NY, and a gallon of apple cider in the water pan from Williams Fruit Farm in Ulster County. All slabs were rubbed with my typical bbq shake, and sauced at the final 30 minutes with my latest cider/tomato sauce. It was a cold day, but I eventually got the WSM to settle in around 220 for a good 4 hours, and then it spiked up to 250 for the final hour and a half despite my best efforts to cool it down. After 5.5 hours in and I had a good range of 185-187 degrees on all slabs.   

First up was Flying Pigs: 

Cut: St Louis cut, with a moderate amount of meat throughout. Weighed in at 1.4 lbs, and needed just a little fat trimming and membrane removed. It was the most uniform slab of the bunch. 

Result: nice fat-to-meat ratio. Not too fatty, but enough grease to keep every bite juicy. Texture was wonderfully tender with a recoginzably meaty pull to every bite. The flavor was a few notches above mild, but the rub and sauce flavors were more prominent. Overall, a pretty good rib. 

Next up, Sir William Berkshire: 

Cut: St Louis cut, with a substantial amount of meat throughout. I picked these up from the Meat Hook, so they st louised them and removed the membrane for me. The spares looked somewhat uneven, but after the Meat Hook's (expert!) prep they were pretty uniform in size. Weighed in at 1.5 lbs, and needed just a little fat trimming, mostly bone-side.  

Result: the meatiest of the bunch which everyone enjoyed. There's something incredibly satisfying about sinking your teeth into numerous meaty bites off a bone. The flavor of the meat was vaguely "hammy," while the texture was both meaty and tender. There is a noticeable fat line mid-way through the meat which was not as fully rendered as I'd like. But still, overall this is a good rib. 

Last-up was Kinderhook Farm:

Cut: Hog farming is new to Kinderhook this season, so I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting when I flipped through the coolers with Lee. I ended up with a couple slabs of well-cut st louis ribs, and a couple of slabs of un-trimmed spares with a somewhat awkward orientation. All slabs needed a good fat trimming and membrane's removed.  

Result: Outstanding meat flavor, by far the most prominent "rib" flavor amongst the three. The slabs were the least meaty of the three farms, which made for an interesting comparison. Your teeth never opened widely to comp into each bite, but the little bite they did pull away was truly wonderful. If I could get a more uniform cut and perhaps a bit more meat on top of the bones I'd declare these an absolute blue-ribbon winner. 

And of course we have the sucked bones from my first plate (yes, I had multiple plates) to confirm a thorough taste test was completed: 

 

The verdict? Kinderhook Farm was the winner in this test based on taste and tenderness... really, really amazing. However the cuts on Kinderhook's are close to the bone, and some slabs were hard to figure a knife around (think: 2-inch rib bones running into a breast-bone). Still, they were the hands-down favorite of the three. Sir William Berkshire gets a nod for nicely meaty slabs with great uniformity, but the meat had the most mild flavor of the three. Flying Pigs ends up in the middle with a more substantial flavor than Sir William but not as pronounced as Kinderhook's. Truth be told, all three farms produce an excellent product. I'm personaly looking forward to seeing Kinderhook's knowledge and expertise grow as they get into their second year of raising hogs.... clearly they are onto something from a taste vantage. 

A group of four of us polished off four slabs total, and I shredded the remaining 8 slabs of ribs destined for a pork chili I'm prepping this coming weekend. Ribs! It's what's for dinner.