Prime Rib

[WJW]

Cooked a sixteen pound prime rib night before last. Forgot to take pics.

Turned out great. Started a fire in the oven about eleven pm the night before. Medium sized fire....(say seven pieces of oak eighteen inches long by four inches in diameter). Let it burn for about twenty minutes and then pushed it to the back of the oven. Went to bed about midnight with the fire burning brightly and the entry completely open.

Before going to work the following morning (approx eight thirty a.m.) I put the door on the oven. Because it had been open all night long, the surface temp of the bricks had dropped to 320. I came back to the house around ten-thirty a.m. and the oven interior had jumped back up to 370 from heat stored in the masonry migrating back to the surface. I cleaned out the ash, and damp mopped the masonry. Went back to the office.

At 5:30 pm I put the sixteen pound prime rib in the oven. (Technically speaking, it was a a whole rib-eye roast, rather than a prime rib or standing rib roast because the bones had been removed.) Pulled the roast from the oven at approx 7:30. Internal temp of the meat was my usual temp of 126. Covered with aluminum foil and a dish towell and let rest for thirty minutes.

Came out fantastic.

Bill

[mrchipster]

Re: Prime Rib

Do you know the temp of the oven when you put the meat in at 5:30 and would you also like to share your rub recipe?

Final internal temp of 126 seems a little low is that a typo?

What was the rib roast contained in? on a grate, in a roaster? on a flat pan? covered during cook or uncovered?

Thanks

Chip

[WJW]

Re: Prime Rib

The oven temp was about 325-330 when the roast went in.

Temp of 126 is not a typo. Although this is my first prime rib in my pizza oven, I've cooked (on average) five prime ribs a year for the past fifteen years. I've done all of the various ways you'll see suggested...start at 400 for fifteen minutes then reduce to 275...or cook the whole time at 200 degrees....etc. About ten years ago I finally decided the one I find that works best and most reliablly for me is to simply but it in at 325 and pull it when the internal temp (at the deepest part of the meat) is 125-127.

The internal temp will continue to rise after being pulled from the oven as the roast is resting. I always let my roast sit for at least 20 minutes and sometimes up to forty. So long as you cover with foil and a dish towel it's still plenty hot inside. By the time I carve the roast, the internal temp is significantly higher than 126. Probablly ten degrees higher. Pulling the roast at that temp will result in meat which is medium rare in the middle 50%, with the 25% on each end being medium to medium well. The end cuts are well done. It really is idiot proof and perfect every time if you do it that way.


I've seen those recipies on line telling people to pull the roast when the temp is 135 or even higher. That is complete b.s. If you cook a roast to that temp before pulling from the oven I guarantee that the roast will be extremely well done. Obviously, if you are cooking the roast at a temp significantly below 325 you need to take into account that the temp rise during the resting period will not be as significant because there is less residual heat trapped in the outer layers of the roast.

I normally cook in a large roasting pan. This weekend I used a disposable foil roasting pan for the first time. Worked fine. Because the bones had been removed from this roast there was no "rack" for it to stand on so that air can circulate around the roast. So I had the choice to either use a metal roasting rack or to simply cut a large onion in thirds and place them under the roast where the bones used to be. I used the onion. This sort of props up the roast in the same way a rack would. And the onion adds good flavor to the drippings for the Au Jus. By using the disposable pan and no roasting rack there were no pans for my wife to wash. (I'm a giver ).

As far as rubs, I've done everything from mustard paste rubs to rock salt over the years...now I just slather a little Kitchen Boquet over the roast and then rub a bit of montreal steak seasoning all over (say a third of a cup for a whole prime rib). Montreal seasoning is primarily salt, pepper, and dried garlic bits. That's exactly what I want on my roasts so it works perfectly IMO. All those other fancy rubs are good, but when I do a prime rib I'm using a very good cut of meat that I have usually aged myself for three weeks or so. The meat is killer with the rub and the au jus made from the drippings. Anything beyond that just hides the flavor of the meat in my opinion.

Cooked uncovered. And in thinking about the timing...it was proabablly closer to eight when the roast came out. (We were playing poker so I was shooting for a later dinner.)

Anyway, it came out great in the wood fired oven and friends got a kick out of the novelty of it.

Bill

[mrchipster]

Re: Prime Rib

Thanks so much for the detailed reply. I have always wanted to do one but have been scared off by the huge cost of making a $150 piece of shoe leather.

I will bite the bullet sometime this spring when the weather warms up.

Chip

[WJW]

Re: Prime Rib

As far as the piece of meat...I usually buy at Costco. Their price for choice grade standing rib roast (i.e. prime rib) is usually right around 6.50 per pound. So a whole fifteen pound prime rib is usually right around a hundred dollars there. The "rib" on a cow is one of the eight primal (main) cuts. A whole standing rib roast is ribs 6-12. The smaller end of the roast is generally a bit more tender so if you are buying less than a whole rib, buy the smaller end if possible.

I started aging beef about ten years ago after having eaten aged beef at a Mastros steak house. It makes a huge difference and is worth doing. I started doing prime ribs for my yearly christmas party fifteen years ago. A year or two after I had started aging the prime rib, we had the guest list for the party jump from approximately eighteen people to well over twenty. This happened over the course of the last two days before the party. It became obvious that I had to buy a second prime rib in order to feed everyone. So I had one prime rib that had been aging for approximately three weeks. Then on the day before the party I went and bought a second prime rib. Same grade...same size...same costco....same price. A real "apples to apples" comparison. The only difference between the two was that one had been aged three weeks and the other had not been aged at all. The difference between the two roasts was unbelievable. The aged one was dramatically more tender and much more flavorful. That's the only time I have done such a comparison and it really was eye-opening.

To dry-age a prime rib it works best if you have a separate refrigerator that is not opened very often. We have one in our garage in which we keep wine, soft drink cans, etc. Stuff that ads no humidity to the fridge. The meat goes on a rack that allows air flow to go all around the roast. It needs to be dry to avoid spoilage. Anything over a week starts giving significant benefit.

Bill

[Laurentius]

Re: Prime Rib

As far as the piece of meat...I usually buy at Costco. Their price for choice grade standing rib roast (i.e. prime rib) is usually right around 6.50 per pound. So a whole fifteen pound prime rib is usually right around a hundred dollars there. The "rib" on a cow is one of the eight primal (main) cuts. A whole standing rib roast is ribs 6-12. The smaller end of the roast is generally a bit more tender so if you are buying less than a whole rib, buy the smaller end if possible.

I started aging beef about ten years ago after having eaten aged beef at a Mastros steak house. It makes a huge difference and is worth doing. I started doing prime ribs for my yearly christmas party fifteen years ago. A year or two after I had started aging the prime rib, we had the guest list for the party jump from approximately eighteen people to well over twenty. This happened over the course of the last two days before the party. It became obvious that I had to buy a second prime rib in order to feed everyone. So I had one prime rib that had been aging for approximately three weeks. Then on the day before the party I went and bought a second prime rib. Same grade...same size...same costco....same price. A real "apples to apples" comparison. The only difference between the two was that one had been aged three weeks and the other had not been aged at all. The difference between the two roasts was unbelievable. The aged one was dramatically more tender and much more flavorful. That's the only time I have done such a comparison and it really was eye-opening.

To dry-age a prime rib it works best if you have a separate refrigerator that is not opened very often. We have one in our garage in which we keep wine, soft drink cans, etc. Stuff that ads no humidity to the fridge. The meat goes on a rack that allows air flow to go all around the roast. It needs to be dry to avoid spoilage. Anything over a week starts giving significant benefit.

Bill

So, what's the complete procedure in aging meat?

[WJW]

Re: Prime Rib

Buy a whole ribeye, new york strip, or prime rib.

Take it out of the cryovack packaging. Dry it off with paper towels. Place it on a rack so that airflow can get all around. (I use a muffin cooling rack which is placed in a shallow pan.) Temp at 35-38. Check it every couple of days. It will start getting dark red and crusty looking after about four to five days. (Imagine how a hamburger would look if you left it uncovered in the fridge for a couple days.) It should be dry. Completely dry with no funky odors. Let it go ten days or so your first time. Trim off the outer sixteenth of an inch of the crusty stuff. Get most of it. Doesn't matter if you miss a bit. The main thing is that no portion of the meat's surface is wet after the first day. By day five the surface will be as dry as a desert. After three weeks, the eintre roast will have lost better than 10% of its weight in water. When you cut a steak off, the meat will be much less moist than a steak you'd get in the supermarket.

You can not age individual steaks. Anything much smaller than half a prime rib doesn't age very well. And even at that, if I am only aging half a rib, I won't let it go much over one week.


Some restaurants/meat cutters will age up to six weeks but they have drying rooms which have precisely controlled humidity. I don't. I generally won't do more than three and a half weeks. Check every couple of days, smell it. Make sure it is dry.

After ten days to three weeks, treat as normal. If it's a new york strip, cut 1.5 inch steaks. If it's a prime rib, roast it, or cut bone-in rib-eye steaks.


Bill

[asimenia]

Re: Prime Rib

We have one in our garage in which we keep wine, soft drink cans, etc. Stuff that ads no humidity to the fridge.
Bill

Now ........... the fridge with the wine is the one that's opened the most in our house!