Removing the rib membrane is a quick and easy step to help you cook the best ribs you have ever had. It only takes seconds, so there is no excuse to skip this step. This How-To guide will cover all the steps so you can master this technique in minutes.
What is the Rib Membrane?
The rib membrane is a thin, tough, shiny layer that covers the bone side of pork ribs. It is the connective tissue that helps hold the meat and bone together. This type of connective tissue is also known as silver skin.
What is Silver-Skin?
Silver skin is very thin and can be tough to see when the meat is raw. It has a translucent appearance, or in a certain light, it looks silver in color.
Silver skin is a connective tissue that is made up of a protein called elastin. Elastin does not cook down or get soft when it is cooked. It remains hard and chewy, even when the rest of the meat and fat is soft as butter.
Since this membrane does not cook down I always recommend to people that you remove it. Also, it prevents barbeque sauce and your dry rub from fully absorbing into the meat. It’s very simple to do and will help you cook tender ribs with a perfect smoky flavor.
How to Remove the Membrane from Pork Ribs
You can follow the same steps below to remove the membrane from spare ribs or baby back ribs. There is no difference in process based on the type of pork ribs you are working with.
Tools:
Sharp knife
Paper towels
Step 1 – Place your ribs on a cutting board. Use a large enough cutting board for the entire rack of ribs. Place the race of ribs with the meat side down on the cutting board. The first step to remove membrane from ribs is to make sure the rack is sitting flat and secure.
Step 2 – Pat the ribs dry. Use a paper towel to pat the bone side dry.
Step 3 – Loosen a corner of the membrane. Use a sharp knife to gently pierce the underside of the membrane. Take care to do this slowly, as the ribs may still be slippery. Wearing nitrile gloves or using a paper towel for grip helps a lot.
Step 4 – Use the paper towels for grip and start pulling. Make sure you have a good grip with your fingers and start slowly to lift the membrane from the ribs and pull slowly to the opposite side. If you are lucky the entire membrane from the ribs will come off. It may tear, which is totally ok, and happens more often than not. Get a good grip on the piece that is left and repeat the process.
Step 5 – Throw the membrane out. The membrane from ribs has no other use, so you can discard it in the garbage.
That’s all there is to it. You may see some white pieces on the bones and meat. This is fat and collagen (another protein) that can stay on the ribs. This will actually help with flavor and will cook down during the smoking process.
After you pull the membrane off and trim your ribs, they are ready for smoking on your pellet grill. You can check out my guide on How to Trim Pork Ribs for step-by-step instructions and pictures.
Can You Remove the Membrane After Cooking?
Technically yes, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It is a mess and will be much harder than doing it when the ribs are still raw. You will most likely pull off some of the soft and delicious rib meat with the membrane that you just spent hours cooking.
Can You Leave the Membrane on?
Yes, you can leave the membrane on if you like. The membrane is edible and does not taste bad. But it does not render down like the other meat, so you will have a chewy, tough membrane when you are eating.
Is it Necessary to Remove the Membrane?
For me, yes. This is a required prep step when I am smoking ribs on my pellet smoker or cooking ribs any other way. But not everyone in the barbecue world agrees.
Other people, including some famous pitmasters, do not remove the membrane. Another option is to leave the membrane but score it with a sharp knife. You can cut down each rib or score it with a cross-hatch. Scoring the membrane in this way helps keep some of the rib’s membrane stay on the bone when you are eating. This may help a bit, but I find it’s just as easy to totally remove the membrane.
How Else Can I Remove the Rib Membrane?
Over the years I have cooked thousands of racks of ribs and I have tried many different methods and tools. But the method I just described above is the best way to remove rib membrane from pork ribs. However, there is always more than one way to skin a cat. Some people are not comfortable using a sharp knife and prefer to use a butter knife or spoon to separate and peel up the first corner of the rib’s membrane.
Thats fine, and it will certainly work. But in cooking its always better to use a sharp knife to accomplish a task as long as you have confidence and good knife control.
I also know some people like to use pliers to grab onto the silvery membrane rather than a paper towel and their fingers. This method works since it gives you some extra power to pull the membrane up, but I think it’s a bit overkill. The membrane is really not that hard to separate from the bones.
Membrane Removal – Pork vs Beef Ribs
Beef ribs are one of my favorite cuts of meat to smoke on my pellet grill. They are beefy, savory, and so tasty. The meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender and is very similar to a great smoked brisket. Like pork ribs, beef ribs also have a membrane on the bone side.
The beef rib membrane is much thicker than on pork ribs. Beef rib membrane also does not render down, so it will be very tough and chewy. If you want to remove the membrane from beef ribs, you can follow the same process for pork ribs.