My Easter Prime Rib

[joebabyny]

Ok, so tackled Prime Rib for the first time, and I am pretty damn pleased with my first go. Prime rib is the perfect cut for using the reverse sear.

 

For the perfect Prime Rib, the goal is a nice crust exterior with as much pink medium rare meat as possible inside with an absolute minimum of gray well done meat around the edges. The conventional way of cooking big roasts is to do some type of high heat quick sear, either in a pan or in the oven or grill, to get a nice crust on the exterior, and then drop the heat to cook the inside to the desired finished temp.

 

The problem here is two-fold. First, the key to searing the exterior is in desiccating (drying out) the exterior surface which needs to happen before the sear can occur. The extra time this takes introduces the second problem, that meat cooks from the outside in and the longer it sits at the high heat, the more penetration of well done cooked meat into the roast. This leaves you with a graduation of meat from gray well done, to light pink medium, to redder medium rare.

 

By reversing the order, and first slowly cooking the roast then finishing quickly at a high heat, you are slowly bringing the whole roast to its desired temp while at the same time (and this here is the key) drying out the exterior surface. By desiccating that surface while slowly cooking over low heat, the roast needs only a fraction of the time at high heat to sear. Leaving you with less gray rings and more even medium rare across the slice.

 

What I did.

I took the roast, salted it the night before, then through it in the middle rack of my FEC120 fat cap up with peach pellets and cooked it at 180 until it hit an IT of 120, bout 3-3.5 hours. It then got pulled and wrapped in foil in a pan for about 1.5 hours. Right before service, I tossed it into my preheated oven at 550 for 10 minutes.

I noticed both the cook in the smoker and the quick blaze in the oven released almost no juice, and there was very little shrinkage to the meat, which means all the juice was still in the roast. I am attributing this to the FEC120 holding 180 and allowing the meat to slowly rise to temp.

 

You can get great results in an oven from start to finish, but keep this in mind:

• Use the lowest reliable temp you can in your oven, this will probably be 200 degrees.
• Pull the meat out and THEN raise the cooking temp of the oven to its hottest setting, probably 5-550. Do NOT let the meat sit in there while the temp rises. The key is to flash the meat quickly in the highest heat you  can for 8-10 minutes. Enough time to sear the outside without penetrating too much into the center.

Here's some pics.

 

 

 

[Thor99]

Crusher just came.

[The Crusher]

Crusher just came.

 

 

No way Im the only one. No way.

[PFSIKH]

Ok, so tackled Prime Rib for the first time, and I am pretty damn pleased with my first go. Prime rib is the perfect cut for using the reverse sear.

 

For the perfect Prime Rib, the goal is a nice crust exterior with as much pink medium rare meat as possible inside with an absolute minimum of gray well done meat around the edges. The conventional way of cooking big roasts is to do some type of high heat quick sear, either in a pan or in the oven or grill, to get a nice crust on the exterior, and then drop the heat to cook the inside to the desired finished temp.

 

The problem here is two-fold. First, the key to searing the exterior is in desiccating (drying out) the exterior surface which needs to happen before the sear can occur. The extra time this takes introduces the second problem, that meat cooks from the outside in and the longer it sits at the high heat, the more penetration of well done cooked meat into the roast. This leaves you with a graduation of meat from gray well done, to light pink medium, to redder medium rare.

 

By reversing the order, and first slowly cooking the roast then finishing quickly at a high heat, you are slowly bringing the whole roast to its desired temp while at the same time (and this here is the key) drying out the exterior surface. By desiccating that surface while slowly cooking over low heat, the roast needs only a fraction of the time at high heat to sear. Leaving you with less gray rings and more even medium rare across the slice.

 

What I did.

I took the roast, salted it the night before, then through it in the middle rack of my FEC120 fat cap up with peach pellets and cooked it at 180 until it hit an IT of 120, bout 3-3.5 hours. It then got pulled and wrapped in foil in a pan for about 1.5 hours. Right before service, I tossed it into my preheated oven at 550 for 10 minutes.

I noticed both the cook in the smoker and the quick blaze in the oven released almost no juice, and there was very little shrinkage to the meat, which means all the juice was still in the roast. I am attributing this to the FEC120 holding 180 and allowing the meat to slowly rise to temp.

 

You can get great results in an oven from start to finish, but keep this in mind:

• Use the lowest reliable temp you can in your oven, this will probably be 200 degrees.
• Pull the meat out and THEN raise the cooking temp of the oven to its hottest setting, probably 5-550. Do NOT let the meat sit in there while the temp rises. The key is to flash the meat quickly in the highest heat you  can for 8-10 minutes. Enough time to sear the outside without penetrating too much into the center.

Here's some pics.

 

 

 

 

Joe it looks great, but I found a receipe (below) and it does the opposite.  You cook at high temprature (500 for 5mins per pound) and then let sit for 2 hours.   

 

http://chefronlock.com/recipes/roast-prime-rib-of-beef/

[joebabyny]

Joe it looks great, but I found a receipe (below) and it does the opposite. You cook at high temprature (500 for 5mins per pound) and then let sit for 2 hours.

http://chefronlock.com/recipes/roast-prime-rib-of-beef/

Yeah that is nothing new, I've seen it before. I take issue with the whole letting the meat sit out thing. Sorry but it just won't drop the core temp of the roast down by very much. And cooking at 500 degrees for a half hour is going to start over cooking more of the interior meat than the method I used above, plus all the time it is going to sit at 500 going down to 200 degrees. Yeah it is extremely easy, but not going to give you the best results possible.

[RutgersJetFan]

Nice. I'm a lonsman but I recently got into smoking and decided to give some lamb shanks and ribs a whirl yesterday. Marinated the shanks in red wine, mustard, and rosemary overnight and I did a dry rub on the ribs. Everything came out very well and it was about a 6 hour smoke. Last week I did a 5 pound brisket and for my first time smoking anything I must say it came out pretty damn awesome, it melted right off the knife and tasted like bacon.

 

I went with a cheaper, Brinkmann electric smoker since I'm very new to the process, so unfortunately manipulating temps isn't an option right now. But I haven't had any problems yet. Smoking everything at 240 doesn't seem to be too huge of a deal for now, though it does look like salmon would be a lot easier to do at lower temps.

 

Here are the pics from the brisket/salmon and ribs/shanks smokes. The brisket had a really great smoke ring, though in hindsight I should have trimmed the fat cap down a little more. And I probably could have done the ribs for about 30 minutes less. Other than that everything was great. Most fun purchase I've made in a long time.

 

 

 

[RutgersJetFan]

Also Joe, do you have any tips for when I'm using both levels of the smoker? We're having a big BBQ in a few weeks and I was going to do a bigger brisket along with a few chickens and ribs, but I'm worried about drippings from the top rack falling down onto the brisket.

[joebabyny]

Also Joe, do you have any tips for when I'm using both levels of the smoker? We're having a big BBQ in a few weeks and I was going to do a bigger brisket along with a few chickens and ribs, but I'm worried about drippings from the top rack falling down onto the brisket.

 

First, what you said in your earlier post about not being able to manipulate temps. I have not used that smoker but I do have a weber wsm, which is the same idea. You regulate temps mostly with the air vents in the bottom and to a lesser degree the vents on top. Closing the bottom vents chokes off air, dropping your temps. Also, you can get a bbq guru control unit that helps you regulate temps as well.

 

About drippings, it happens, no way around it. The rule is chicken always on top, unless you cook it in some type of pan. You can't have chicken dripping down on the meat due to the fact that chicken is covered in bacteria. A lot of guys, including me in competitions, cook the chicken mostly in an aluminum pan with butter and/or chicken stock. I have been frenching or "lollipopping" chicken drumstcks, coating them in a rub, and standing them up in a half sized pan with 2 sticks of butter. Then into a 280 degree smoker for about 2 hours. At that point they are at about 160 degrees IT and I pul them, glaze them in sauce, and let them sit on the grate to glaze for 30 minutes.

 

Most bbqers like to put ribs/pork butts on top of the brisket, preferring the drippings of pork onto the beef rather than the other way around. You should give pork butt a go. That was the first thing I mastered and I think the most forgiving of the core 4 bbq meats. Also, 2 butts, a tray of home made slaw, and a pile of small dinner rolls and you have a huge crowd pleaser for your party.

[joebabyny]

Oh, just saw that thing you have is electric, ummm, yeah.

 

If you enjoy smoking, check out the weber smokey mountain. That is the smoker I started with, and the one I recommend to anyone looking to start. It is affordable and you can use it forever. Some guys win some serious competitions using nothing more than a few of them. You don't need a $5,000 pit to put out awesome food.

[RutgersJetFan]

Oh, just saw that thing you have is electric, ummm, yeah.

 

If you enjoy smoking, check out the weber smokey mountain. That is the smoker I started with, and the one I recommend to anyone looking to start. It is affordable and you can use it forever. Some guys win some serious competitions using nothing more than a few of them. You don't need a $5,000 pit to put out awesome food.

 

Yeah, we have a very small back area which is shared with 3 other apartments, and the landlord has a no charcoal rule for BBQs. I didn't want to go with a propane smoker because I didn't want to shell out 25 bucks every single time I wanted to smoke something, so electric it was. There are no vents to manipulate the temp, but tilting the lid works to some degree. I try not to do that, however, since like you said the top should be kept to a minimum and every bit of research I've done the past few weeks also suggests keeping that to a bare minimum. I've read about a few instances where people install some sort of electric controller, but I'm horrible with electrical work and I'd rather not short out the house. For now, the one temperature hasn't really been a problem.

 

I'll give the pork butts a try most definitely. The Mrs. has been demanding pulled pork since I bought the smoker so that's a good call. Thanks for the advice.

 

Any good slaw recipes?

[#27TheDominator]

Yeah, we have a very small back area which is shared with 3 other apartments, and the landlord has a no charcoal rule for BBQs. I didn't want to go with a propane smoker because I didn't want to shell out 25 bucks every single time I wanted to smoke something, so electric it was. There are no vents to manipulate the temp, but tilting the lid works to some degree. I try not to do that, however, since like you said the top should be kept to a minimum and every bit of research I've done the past few weeks also suggests keeping that to a bare minimum. I've read about a few instances where people install some sort of electric controller, but I'm horrible with electrical work and I'd rather not short out the house. For now, the one temperature hasn't really been a problem.

 

I'll give the pork butts a try most definitely. The Mrs. has been demanding pulled pork since I bought the smoker so that's a good call. Thanks for the advice.

 

Any good slaw recipes?

 

Don't you have a socket in your kitchen sink or something?

[RutgersJetFan]

Don't you have a socket in your kitchen sink or something?

 

Good memory. That was my old place. I've been rescued.

[joebabyny]

Is that the brinkmanm gourmet model? I saw a write up a guy did with a bunch of mods, I'll find the link and send it your way.

My slaw recipe is the t!ts. Kick it up even more by adding some blue cheese crumbles.

http://www.tailgatejoe.com/tangy-creamy-coleslaw/

[#27TheDominator]

Good memory. That was my old place. I've been rescued.

 

Ah you've hit the big time.  Too bad.  In that other place you probably could have gotten away with using charcoal in the living room. 

[RutgersJetFan]

Ah you've hit the big time. Too bad. In that other place you probably could have gotten away with using charcoal in the living room.

The roaches would have probably done a better job of finishing off all the food than the wife does too.

[RutgersJetFan]

Is that the brinkmanm gourmet model? I saw a write up a guy did with a bunch of mods, I'll find the link and send it your way.

My slaw recipe is the t!ts. Kick it up even more by adding some blue cheese crumbles.

http://www.tailgatejoe.com/tangy-creamy-coleslaw/

It is. Great smoker for a beginner in my humble opinion. I've only done two smokes and I've learned a ton already. Most notably don't stand directly over the smoker when you have to do any work because inhaling smoke is very bad for you. Who knew?

[PFSIKH]

Yeah that is nothing new, I've seen it before. I take issue with the whole letting the meat sit out thing. Sorry but it just won't drop the core temp of the roast down by very much. And cooking at 500 degrees for a half hour is going to start over cooking more of the interior meat than the method I used above, plus all the time it is going to sit at 500 going down to 200 degrees. Yeah it is extremely easy, but not going to give you the best results possible.

 

Well Joe...some of us need to use the K.I.S.S. method. 

[BP]

 

 

 

Hi Guys Joe and Rutgers. that looks great! heres my easter feast, baby back ribs, filet mignon and salmon (cant see the salmon) we sear the filet on really high heat for about 40 minutes and use a meat thermometer. the key is letting it cool for 15 minutes before you cut it. the ends are well done and it gets more rare when you move inwards.

[PatriotReign37]

Looks awesome Joe.

 

Low and slow.

[CTM]

Ops post looks awesome.

 

I need to learn how to grill.. I always mess it up

[joebabyny]

 

 

 

Hi Guys Joe and Rutgers. that looks great! heres my easter feast, baby back ribs, filet mignon and salmon (cant see the salmon) we sear the filet on really high heat for about 40 minutes and use a meat thermometer. the key is letting it cool for 15 minutes before you cut it. the ends are well done and it gets more rare when you move inwards.

 

Next time go to the site of the master,

http://www.tailgatejoe.com/filet-mignon-sliders/

[BP]

Next time go to the site of the master,

http://www.tailgatejoe.com/filet-mignon-sliders/

LOL Dude! not everybody is a tech ninja/gourmet chef/former porn producer of tuna can studios. those two filets take up my whole grill. its high heat ONLY

 

But your filet looks great! nice tutorial and it came out fantastic.

[joebabyny]

LOL Dude! not everybody is a tech ninja/gourmet chef/former porn producer of tuna can studios. those two filets take up my whole grill. its high heat ONLY

 

But your filet looks great! nice tutorial and it came out fantastic.

 

can we not live in the past please, lol

[RutgersJetFan]

 

 

 

Hi Guys Joe and Rutgers. that looks great! heres my easter feast, baby back ribs, filet mignon and salmon (cant see the salmon) we sear the filet on really high heat for about 40 minutes and use a meat thermometer. the key is letting it cool for 15 minutes before you cut it. the ends are well done and it gets more rare when you move inwards.

 

Just saw this. Very nice. Do you go all foil for the ribs or do you start with them on the grill for a little bit first?

[BP]

Just saw this. Very nice. Do you go all foil for the ribs or do you start with them on the grill for a little bit first?

No, the salmon was in the foil lol

 

I soak the baby back pork ribs in apple cider vinegar for like 2-3 hours at room temperature. then I put a rub on them and then slow cook them (no tin foil) over low to medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour. they're crunchy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

[#27TheDominator]

Just saw this. Very nice. Do you go all foil for the ribs or do you start with them on the grill for a little bit first?

 

 

No, the salmon was in the foil lol

 

I soak the baby back pork ribs in apple cider vinegar for like 2-3 hours at room temperature. then I put a rub on them and then slow cook them (no tin foil) over low to medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour. they're crunchy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

 

Being in these fancy pants apartments I don't have as much grill access as I'd like.  I do the foil pack ribs in the oven and it works pretty well, but takes forever. I usually do dry rub, low and slow in the oven and then for the last few minutes I will baste them up, raise the heat and open the foil.  Sometimes I will just pour a little Coke in the dry rub and brush it on, but I like things sweet. Maybe put them in the broiler for a bit to crust up the outside a tiny bit.  That would be the time I would have them on the grill out of the foil.  The foil is good because it keeps them moist, almost steaming them.  I would think you would want them on the grill at the end, not the beginning. Slow cooker is much less messy. 

[BP]

Being in these fancy pants apartments I don't have as much grill access as I'd like.  I do the foil pack ribs in the oven and it works pretty well, but takes forever. I usually do dry rub, low and slow in the oven and then for the last few minutes I will baste them up, raise the heat and open the foil.  Sometimes I will just pour a little Coke in the dry rub and brush it on, but I like things sweet. Maybe put them in the broiler for a bit to crust up the outside a tiny bit.  That would be the time I would have them on the grill out of the foil.  The foil is good because it keeps them moist, almost steaming them.  I would think you would want them on the grill at the end, not the beginning. Slow cooker is much less messy. 

The whole point of the brine (apple cider vinegar) is it keeps them very moist on the inside. Foil sounds like a food idea for the oven though.

[#27TheDominator]

The whole point of the brine (apple cider vinegar) is it keeps them very moist on the inside. Foil sounds like a food idea for the oven though.

 

Yeah, if you can keep the heat low on the grill I don't see any problem with cooking them direct.  I just meant that if you were going to use foil you would use it first and then go to the grill, not vice versa.  In fact, this kind of jibes with what Tailgate Joe did with his roast in the OP - slow cook and then sear, rather than vice versa.

[RutgersJetFan]

The whole point of the brine (apple cider vinegar) is it keeps them very moist on the inside. Foil sounds like a food idea for the oven though.

 

I foiled for both the brisket and ribs on the smoker after a few hours. Worked very well to seal up the moisture.

[joebabyny]

Yeah, if you can keep the heat low on the grill I don't see any problem with cooking them direct.  I just meant that if you were going to use foil you would use it first and then go to the grill, not vice versa.  In fact, this kind of jibes with what Tailgate Joe did with his roast in the OP - slow cook and then sear, rather than vice versa.

 

On the grill or smoker, you foil at the end, but then go about 15 minutes without foil just to set the glaze. Reason being, the meat takes the most smoke and smoke ring develops up until an internal meat temp of around 150 or so.

 

What temp are you cooking them in the oven at?

[RutgersJetFan]

On the grill or smoker, you foil at the end, but then go about 15 minutes without foil just to set the glaze. Reason being, the meat takes the most smoke and smoke ring develops up until an internal meat temp of around 150 or so.

What temp are you cooking them in the oven at?

Joe, have you ever finished briskets in the oven? As in smoking until they get up to 165, then foiling and putting them in the oven at low heat to finish them off. I know it's not exactly the purist way to go.

[#27TheDominator]

On the grill or smoker, you foil at the end, but then go about 15 minutes without foil just to set the glaze. Reason being, the meat takes the most smoke and smoke ring develops up until an internal meat temp of around 150 or so.

 

What temp are you cooking them in the oven at?

 

I can't remember.  Probably whatever Alton Brown said.  No more than 225.  Not sure it if was lower.

[joebabyny]

Joe, have you ever finished briskets in the oven? As in smoking until they get up to 165, then foiling and putting them in the oven at low heat to finish them off. I know it's not exactly the purist way to go.

 

I haven't, but plenty of people do, especially if rime is running longer than you thought.

[joebabyny]

I can't remember.  Probably whatever Alton Brown said.  No more than 225.  Not sure it if was lower.

 

IMO that is definitely lower than it needs to be. The bbq community seems to have realized things don't need to be that low. I am currently doing my ribs at 280 in my pellet smoker which has a convection fan so it is like being in 300, for about 3 hours. Most guys it seems are going to 275 or so for ribs.

[joebabyny]

I haven't, but plenty of people do, especially if rime is running longer than you thought.

 

I'd prolly set the oven to 250.