ribs: pork vs. beef

Its a personal preference. I prefer pork spare-ribs. Beef ribs are huge, a pain to cook, and are fattier and meatier than pork ribs, but less tender and flavorful generally. As far as pork goes: The spare ribs are flatter and come from the belly area of the pig, and have more flavor. The back ribs are more curved and have milder flavor, though are naturally more tender.\\ Prepared right, spare ribs can be just as tender as back ribs. If you DO decide to go with beef ribs, here's a good guide: http://grillinfools.com/2009/06/23/u...ith-beef-ribs/

Oddly enough, I just had spare ribs and baby backs yesterday at lunch. I'd agree with what Slim said; while I tend to prefer baby back because historically it's a safer bet at getting more tender meat, if the restaurant knows how to do ribs right then spare can be just as good. I know some people tend to be against boiling the ribs because they'll lose flavor before hitting the grill but I'll take fall-off-the-bone ribs dumped in bbq sauce over "flavorful" ribs that I have to fight tooth and nail to scrape off any bit of meat.

I guess I'd go with pork baby back if you weren't planning on slow/pre-cooking them.

Pork baby back ribs, ftw! Beef ribs are nice, too, but they'll have to be cooked for a lot longer.

I've never seen beef ribs at a bbq, always pork.

IF they're asking for ribs then they most likely want baby back's. It's pretty much the standard and many people do not like spare ribs or "carolina" style ribs because of the extra fat.

Slim has a great summary here and I appreciate the link to my beef ribs. The beef ribs is something everyone should try and with foiling take much less time than was previously required.

But if someone asks for you to bring ribs he would specify he wanted beef. As for the best of the two, well, that's personal preference. More people prefer baby backs ribs than spares. So if you are feeding quite a few people and want to satisfy the most people there, go with BBR's.

How many people are you feeding? General rule of thumb is that 1 slab will feed 3 people along with side dishes. If you are grilling for a bunch of heavy eaters say a bunch of guys after a golf tourney or something then go with 1 slab to 2 people.

Also, I'm a bit confused. Someone is asking you to bring ribs to a BBQ? Will you be grilling them? It sounds as if you are just bringing them over and someone else will be grilling them. Do you plan on being at this BBQ all day? A minimum of 2 hours is required for perfect ribs and the latest craze, something I have done the last couple of years but have since abandoned, is the 3-2-1 method for spares and 2-1.5-1 method for BBR's. The numbers are hours. The first number is the hours smoked at 200-225 degrees. The second number is how long the ribs are put in foil and back on the grill. The final number is the time out of the foil and back on the heat. So I would suggest bring plenty of your favorite beverage of choice as you are going to be there for quite a while prior to eating.

Its possible too to get those pre-cooked and pre-sauced monstrosities and just slap them on a grill to warm them up.

I can see that, but wouldn't the OP be looking for how to cook them as well in that case?

Not really. They are sort of a no-brainer. Put them on the grill for 10 minutes.

I'd rather eat a McRib.

when i SMOKE ribs its always bbq babybacks