I never remove the membrane for bulk-feed cooks. It’s not a competition and the people eating the ribs won’t even notice. They are usually blown away by real smoked ribs because they’re used to eating boiled and sweet sauced type of ribs from places like Applebees.
I took a bbq class at a KCBS competition from a competitor who also does a ton of public sales at the event. Their stand usually has two lines that are 50-60 people deep all weekend. They taught competition and bulk-feed type of cooking. The competition ribs were prepared as you would expect. The bulk feed ribs are excellent but are done in an unconventional way because they serve so many. They go through ribs by the reefer truck load and don’t have time to thaw them. The rub is applied to the frozen rib with an Intact membrane then they go into a giant carousel smoker. When they are done, they are sauced then grilled to set the sauce, sliced and served. These bulk serve ribs are better than 99% of the ribs that you would find in any resturant. If nothing else I learned that all of the fuss used for competition ribs isn’t needed when feeding the masses.
