If you are having trouble finding meaty beef ribs, another way to get a rack of ribs for barbecue is to buy a whole rib roast with the bones attached. The ribs can be sliced away from the rest of the roast leaving as much extra meat as you want on the ribs. 1/2 to 1 inch is usually enough. This roast weighs about 17 pounds. It is also more economical to buy meat in bulk and freeze it for later use.

With a sharp knife start cutting the rib bones away from the roast by slicing just behind the bones. Leave as much meat as you want to keep on the ribs.

The ribs have now been totally separated from the rest of the roast. I left about 1/2" of additional meat on the ribs.

This is the meaty side of the ribs. Trim off the excess fat and the beef ribs are ready to cook.

If we look at the ribs from the side you can see this rack is much meatier than the beef ribs that you normally get from the supermarket.

Slice the remaining roast into rib-eye steaks 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick.

This roast yielded 13 steaks in addition to the rack of ribs.

Frozen meat will keep much longer if it is vacuum packed before freezing. The Foodsaver vacuum sealer made by Tilia is an excellent appliance.

The Foodsaver unit uses heavy duty freezer bags that are reusable. You can keep frozen foods for months with no worry of freezer burn.

For an investment of around $75 we now have a rack of meaty beef back ribs to barbecue and 13 nice, thick ribeye steaks for the grill. For the next installment, we'll cook this rack of ribs on a Backwoods Smoker.

Rub the ribs and prepare them for smoking as described in the basic beef ribs instructions. The rack we trimmed from the roast is on the right. You can see how much meatier it is than the packer trimmed beef ribs. This time, we are basting these ribs every 1/2 hour with a mop to keep them moist. Here is a mop recipe.

This is our rack of ribs after cooking at 225 degrees for 10 hours. Beef ribs have to be cooked until they are tender, however long that may take. Since this rack of ribs had more meat it took longer than the racks with little meat on the bones. Be careful not to let the temperature spike up when cooking beef ribs. If they get too hot the meat will shrink up on the bones and they will become tough.

You can see from these ribs sliced off the rack that they are very meaty, juicy and tender and have a nice smoke ring.