Getting ready to roast an outrageous prime rib

[Marlene]

I'll be picking up a 22 lb prime rib USDA prime, dry aged 26 days, tomorrow.  We'll cut it into two roasts.  One 17lb for New Year's eve and the other for our Christmas dinner.  We'll be putting the 17 lb one on the smoker.

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Could you explain how you intend to smoke this roast?

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Sure. I haven't done one this size, but have done a 9lber on the smoker. We use apple wood, sparingly, and smoke it at 200. When we did the 9 lb, it took a little over 3 hours, then we seared it on the grill afterwards. I'm thinking maybe 4 1/2 hours for this one, but who knows. It will be very very cold up there, so it could take a little longer. No rush, as long as we eat before midnight! We do use a thermometer, so I'll be able to monitor in terms of timing for other dishes.

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I know very little about smoking and BBQ, does this mean your roast will be far from rare but closer to, say, BBQ ribs?

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Oh no. It will be rare. We take it off the smoker when it hits 120 usually. I have a pic somewhere of the one I smoked a couple of months ago. I'll see if I can find it.

[Marlene]

This is what it looked like after we took it off the smoker and seared it briefly on the grill.

[paulraphael]

Looks gorgeous, Marlene.

[tim]

The bones are aging too.  I did have a question about making a basic Au Jus.  Can I just take beef stock, add the bones, pepper and parsley and simmer?  Can anyone give me tips on making a decent Au Jus?  Thanks.

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Octaveman,

"I've Never Been iIn Love Before' and Au Jus means with meat juices. There are a number of ways to simulate the flavor of meat juices, most pretty much like you make a full flavored stock. Roasted bones, meat trimmings, aromatics (onion, leeks, carrot, celery, garlic, meats, ham bones), and "Days of Wine and Roses". I mea red wine.

You can finish with stock, reduced red wine (preferably a meritage with little oak), shallots, herbs, s&p and butter "Between the Devil and ;the Deep Blue Sea".

Run your sauce through a fine strainer and give it "Second Chances" by adding those beef juices from your roast.

In "Chicago" we adjust the consistency with glace or even arrowroot.

Thank you for the musical accompianment.

Tim

ps: I've Never Been In Love Before" in the background!

[paulraphael]

Bob, it's generally preferable to do your aging with as much bone and fatcap as possible. You'll lose less good meat to dessication this way. The drying that you want is the gradual drying that occurs throughout the meat; the radical drying at the surface does you no good ... you have to trim all that meat anyhow. It might be worth reassembling the roast ... just put the bones right where they came from (if you kept them intact) and tie it all tightly together.

My roast aged with the bones on; this morning my butcher removed the bones and tied them back in the way I'm describing. I plan to do the low temp roast with the bones on, and then make some jus while the oven gets up to searing temperature.

The short answer to making a jus is to do just what you described: simmer the roasted bones in some stock. But there are a lot of ways you can tweak the process to get more flavor. One thing I like to do is start with a little of stock and add more gradually as the simmering stock reduces. This preserves much more of the fresh flavors than making it all at once and then reducing the whole batch: some of the stock is highly reduced (which concentrates certain flavors but loses the more volatile flavors) and some is only lightly reduced (which preservs the volatile flavors.

It's also helpful to simmer the bones and trimmings in batches. Instead of doing them all at once, simmer them sequentially. The last pieces should only simmer for a few minutes.

And you can add some mirepoix, herbs etc ... whatever you like.

[ChefCrash]

On medium heat,

Saute a large, coarsely chopped portabella mushroom til tender, S&P.

Deglaze with two cups of water and 1/2 cup red wine and leave to simmer on low heat.

Season the rib bones with the same seasonings as your roast (Thyme, Rosemary) S&P.

In a stainless pan on medium high heat, brown the bones on all sides in a little oil.

When you have enough fond, deglaze the pan with the mushroom mixture.

Simmer and correct the seasoning. Add more water if needed. You can discard the mushrooms. I leave them in.

[Marlene]

Here it is. It is actually 24 lbs. We have decided to smoke the whole thing rather than cut it up.

So here is the question of the day. Should I sear it before smoking? Somehow, i think a beast of this size would be easier to sear before cooking rather than after. I have no idea how long this beast is going to take on the smoker.

Edited December 24, 2008 by Marlene (log)

[fiftydollars]

I'm picking up a three-rib roast tomorrow for butter poaching. It's prime graded and aged 21 days, but other than that it's a plain ol' rib roast from the good folks at Golden Gate Meat Co.

I'll try to report on my success (or lack thereof) as soon as I can. I'll be using the recipe Michael Mina wrote for the WaPo food section. Let's see if Big Mike's recipe can wow the crowd. Wish me some luck...

[Magictofu]

Here it is.  It is actually 24 lbs.  We have decided to smoke the whole thing rather than cut it up.

So here is the question of the day.  Should I sear it before smoking?  Somehow, i think a beast of this size would be easier to sear before cooking rather than after.  I have no idea how long this beast is going to take on the smoker.

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Was is really dry aged? Was is trimmed before being vac-packed?

As for smoking, correct me if I'm wrong but since the thickness of the meat does not change whether you cut it in two or not, shouldn't this roast take about the same time?

[Marlene]

Here it is.  It is actually 24 lbs.  We have decided to smoke the whole thing rather than cut it up.

So here is the question of the day.  Should I sear it before smoking?  Somehow, i think a beast of this size would be easier to sear before cooking rather than after.  I have no idea how long this beast is going to take on the smoker.

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Was is really dry aged? Was is trimmed before being vac-packed?

As for smoking, correct me if I'm wrong but since the thickness of the meat does not change whether you cut it in two or not, shouldn't this roast take about the same time?

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Yes, yes and sort of. A 9 lb prime rib takes longer than a 4 lb if you are cooking minutes per pound. Which is what I usually do.

Edited December 24, 2008 by Marlene (log)

[Magictofu]

It looks very "clean" for an aged piece of meat, you probably have a very good butcher.

Marlene, would cooking 2 roasts take twice as long as cooking a single roast? My guess is that it does not. I've only seen minutes per pounds for large birds like Turkey which I always considered somewhat accurate since birds are more round than long.

Again, I'm definitely not a roast expert, far from it...

[Marlene]

It came from a restaurant. I'll ask the chef again, but he told me it would be dry aged. By the way, I just took a smaller roast out of the freezer for dinner tonight. I know it was dry aged and it looks almost as clean.

As for cooking times, I have always roasted my beef at 18 minutes per pound more or less, and pull it at 120. So I don't know. I'll stick a thermometer in this beast while it's on the smoker and see how it goes I guess!

[Tim Dolan]

Just wanted to say that I'm pretty excited to see how everything turns out for everybody. All of these different methods and stunning pieces of meat has my head spinning.

[Jon Savage]

6.8 lbs choice Angus, removed ribs, tied same back on.

Rubbed with olive oil, S&P, will sit in fridge until tomorrow.

Will roast @ 450 for 15-20 mins then 325 until internal reaches 110-115.

This roast looks pretty well marbled and was on sale so just $35.

[ChefCrash]

8.25 lb choice before aging.

After on week.

I will cook this @ 200* convection and turn the heat down after 3.5 hours to 130*. Should be done in about five hours. No searing required.

You can see last year's here, post #52

[paulraphael]

The meat has been delivered to D.C., in a cooler in the belly of a bus ... an operation resembling a low budget interstate organ transplant.

It's rewrapped in fresh butcher paper, covered in plastic, in a basement fridge at my sister's that i have set to about 33 degrees. The oven has been checked out ... it holds steady at 214 degrees, but not a degree cooler. If I set it to 200, or 190, or 180, it stabilizes at 214. so that will be the roasting temp! If you can call that roasting, I don't know.

I have a torch with me just in case the oven doesnt' brown the meat well with a short blast at 500. Will get pcs and post ... xmas dinner will actually be tomorrow night.

I hope santa and your butchers treat all of you well!

[Jon Savage]

Ours turned out great, pulled it out @ 115 F internal. Rested probably 40 minutes or so. Fanfreakingtastic. Probe thermometer is absolutely essential. Our roast was done a good 45 minutes before the X minutes per lb at a given temp formula said it would be.

[paulraphael]

Ours turned out great, pulled it out @ 115 F internal. Rested probably 40 minutes or so. Fanfreakingtastic. Probe thermometer is absolutely essential. Our roast was done a good 45 minutes before the X minutes per lb at a given temp formula said it would be.

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Do you know how much the temp rose after resting?

Here's the problem with the X minutes/pound formulas: the weight doesn't matter; the thickness does. And rib roasts don't typically get thicker when they get heavier; they get longer. The size is determined by the number of ribs you get. So it's possible for a 6lb rib roast to take exaclty the same amount of time as an 18lb roast. Which end of the rib your roast comes from (chuck or loin) will have bigger effect on thickness and cooking time than the overall size of the roast.

So yeah, I'm being guided by my trusty dual copilots: probe thermometer and wild guess. We're having xmas dinner tomorrow, a day late, so I get to be the lucky beneficiary of all your beautiful roasts.

[Jon Savage]

Ours turned out great, pulled it out @ 115 F internal. Rested probably 40 minutes or so. Fanfreakingtastic. Probe thermometer is absolutely essential. Our roast was done a good 45 minutes before the X minutes per lb at a given temp formula said it would be.

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Do you know how much the temp rose after resting?

So yeah, I'm being guided by my trusty dual copilots: probe thermometer and wild guess. We're having xmas dinner tomorrow, a day late, so I get to be the lucky beneficiary of all your beautiful roasts.

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I don't know how much it rose. It was tented (but) ambient in our kitchen this time of year is 61 F.

It was definitely medium rare, I'd probably pull it a good ten degrees less moving more towards budrichards 100 F were I to do it again.

In any case the roast was succulent, tender and unctuous. Our guests raved about it so I reckon it was a success. Jus was just some Madeira reduced by 1/2 in the roasting pan with sauteed chopped shallots and 1/2 l beef stock reduce the lot to maybe 1.5 cups and put through a chinois to get the big chunks.

Sides were

Haricot vert sauteed w/ garlic and shallots + a little sea salt

Mashed potatoes

Creamed spinach

Yorkshire pudding

Whipped cream with horseradish of course

The creamed spinach was awfully good- followed Lawry's recipe almost verbatim except added

a knob of butter since our home cured bacon is far leaner then the commodity stuff. I also omitted their seasoned salt subbing instead sea salt and a little smoked cayenne.

Spinach recipe

That spinach was like crack only legal!

-- edit I also told our guests that the roast would be done when it was *done* and that said time could vary +- from the best guess scenario.

Edited December 26, 2008 by 6ppc (log)

[lennyk]

Mines came out pretty good, I sliced off a bit fat with some meat attached and browned it in a pan to make a mushroom sauce separately.

[paulraphael]

I don't know how much it rose. It was tented (but) ambient in our kitchen this time of year is 61 F.

It was definitely medium rare, I'd probably pull it a good ten degrees less moving more towards budrichards 100 F were I to do it again.

Hmmm ... my next question is how reliable is your thermometer? Very unusual for a piece of meat that size to rise 20 or more degrees.

I'm going for rare, not medium rare (subjective terms ... let's call it red and warm in the middle, browned on the outside), and am planning to pull at 120 to 122, expecting 4 to 5 degrees rise.

[Dave Hatfield]

Are you ever going to cook & eat this thing before it finally goes rotten?

Or, are you just going to continue to tease us, make us drool and wish that we were invited to your house for dinner?

If I live that long that is!

[Jon Savage]

Hmmm ... my next question is how reliable is your thermometer? Very unusual for a piece of meat that size to rise 20 or more degrees.

I'm going for rare, not medium rare (subjective terms ... let's call it red and warm in the middle, browned on the outside), and am planning to pull at 120 to 122, expecting 4 to 5 degrees rise.

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Good question. The thermometer was new since my other one steadfastly insisted that our kitchen was a toasty 375 degrees. The new thermometer does agree with 3 others in the house though so I reckon that its OK, unlikely that I have 4 that are wonky in the same direction.

In any case it is hugely subjective, I was happy with the roast just would have liked it a little more rare.

[Jon Savage]

Are you ever going to cook & eat this thing before it finally goes rotten?

Or, are you just going to continue to tease us, make us drool and wish that we were invited to your house for dinner?

If I live that long that is!

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Inquiring minds want to know...

[paulraphael]

Roasted, documented, eaten!

And a success. I had to squirrel away some of the last scraps to make a sandwich for the bus ride back from D.C. today.

Ribs have been removed and re-attached. salted and peppered and about to get buttered.

after 2:45 in a 214° oven. The oven wouldn't stabilize any lower ... something wrong with it. Lower and slower would have been more ideal (low oven, alto shaam, sous vide, butter poaching, or whatever). Tim was right about the aged meat cooking fast!

Cooked to an internal temp of 122°. My target was 118°.

Here are the ribs after removal. I broke them all the way down, browned them on all sides, and simmered them in veal stock, beef coulis, and mushroom cooking liquid as part of the sauce preparation.

Some of the sauce fixins are in the tupperware on the left.

Browned in about 25 minutes at 500°.

Cooked to 125° internal temp; rose to 130° out of oven. Target was 122°/127°.

Some pyrotechnics for the final touch. Stopped short of charring (did not want charred flavors competing with the beef).

Torch in one hand / camera in the other leaves no free hands for wine glass. This will need rethinking in the future.

This cooking method gave a finished roast with basically no gradient ... browned and crisped exterior, and medium rare-ish from center to edge.

Next time I hope to have more control over the oven and will cook 3 to 5° lower. I like it a bit more rare.

Flavor of the meat was wonderful ... but not "startling" as my butcher warned it might be. Aged flavors were actually less pronounced than on some strip steaks he dry aged 6 weeks for me. None of the guests fainted or needed medical attention. All meat that wasn't hidden was consumed.

The roast had a balanced, mellow, nutty, warm, beefy flavor. Tender and succulent throughout. Definitely the nicest roast i've ever made (and probably the nicest I've had).

Thanks everyone for all the input!

(the rest of the meal: some spanish cheeses (cow, sheep, goat) and crackers, porccini corn chowder, sautéed brussel sprouts, roasted potatoes with sage, green salad, roasted pears with brown butter cream sauce, heart of darkness brownies. my dad selected the wines, which I didn't write down, and the best of which got consumed behind my back while I was in the kitchen ... they were all bordeaux of one type or another, and I was told they were delicious).

Edited December 28, 2008 by paulraphael (log)