This was graciously posted by Danny Gauldin of NM on Ray Basso's forum.
Danny has been a succesful bbq restaurant owner for about 25 years and does a lot of cook testing.
He has cooked on Cookshacks,as well as others.
Posted by Danny on October 27, 2004 at 16:16:33:
Boys & Girls,
Thought I'd do a little rib test today for fun. It might help some of you who want to know more than just how many bones to figure per person for a cater. The more you know, the better cook you will be. By knowing how much shrinkage one can expect and what the actual yield weight will be could help you on your estimates, especially if you were figuring ribs by the ounce (per person) vs. number of bones.
I use a 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 lb. St. Louis cut. Here's how the numbers turned out:
Raw Weight Cooked Weight
#1. 2.69 lbs. #1. 1.87 lbs.
#2 2.67 lbs. #2. 1.84 lbs.
#3. 2.69 lbs. #3. 1.92 lbs.
The average after cooked yield weight was 70% with a 30% shrinkage. There is very little, if any, trim-off after cooked to be done with this cut of rib, so you can count on about a 70% usable yield. These ribs were cooked to very tender, (like KCBS likes' em), but not falling off the bone. If you wanted to figure a yield of 7 lbs., you would need to cook 10 lbs. Simple enough.
Catch you all later.
Danny
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