Advice on a Rotisserie Beef Roast


 

Bruce

TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
I have a small 2.5lb Beef Bottom Round Roast that I plan to do in my Weber Genesis 1000 gasser on a rotisserie. I pretty much have my recipe set but am unsure what temp I should set the grill to and how long I could expect to cook the roast to get it to a medium rare.

Thanks.
Bruce
 
I have zero exp with a rotiss and I only slow roast bottom round roasts in the 250 range and take them to med rare 135 to 140, around 25 mins a pound.

Tim
 
That sounds great Timothy. I expect that would apply to a roto cook as well.
I guess I am looking at about a bit over an hour at 250 degrees then. 135 to 140 sounds perfect as well.
Thanks.
 
Roast that small Bruce I would not throw on rotisserie. Due to it's small size the rod will get VERY hot and cause the interior to be over done before you can say "oh s&*t" Best bet treat it like a giant steak or very small roast and do it indirect (between the front/rear burners center off). I would go a little on the "hot side" though keeping the temps up a little hotter than you might think. Pull it on the rare side say 125, tent it for about 10 to 15 min and do it sliced thin. It's gonna be a bit chewy BUT it will be delichios
 
Hmmmm, maybe I will rethink the Roto then. How hot would you run the temps as measured at grate level next to the meat?
 
I don't know about grate level. I usually do this type of thing with the 2 outside burners on med, center off. Hood thermo typically reads in the 350 to 400 range. Also another thing I typically do is use a well seasoned olive oil marinade first i.e. red pepper flakes to taste, 3 or so nice sized garlic cloves smashed and finely chopped, good amount salt/black pepper, some dried herbs you might like (marjoram, oregano, thyme, etc), poke it really well with a large dinner fork and let the EVOO and seasonings sink/rub in well for maybe an hour or 2. Get the grill hot, quick sear, turn down burners to med turn off center and let roast until desired temp
 
Larry, I am too lazy for all that Italian seasoning and prep. I am sure it would be awesome, buy I usually take the shorter route between two points. I put a good rub on it last night and will be putting it on the grill tomorrow. I will make some vegetable sides for it as well.

But, since I have an E/W burner grill, I will be using just the front burner with a bit of cherry wood for smoke on it. The roast will be positioned in the rear of the grill. I will probably spin the roast 180 degrees partway through the cook. I will go for about 300 degrees on the grate level thermometer reading. Does that sound like a decent plan?
 
Regarding the temp of the spit rod: 1) if your grill temp is at 250F, the spit rod will be NO HOTTER than 250F also (2nd law of thermo). In fact, for most of the cook, the spit rod temp will vary between 250 at the extremities to much less because of the heat sink of the roast. Even at the end of the cook, the spit rod temp inside the roast will be at most equal to the roast internal temp.
 
Jan, I have to agree with your logic. I suppose there could be minimal heat transfer to the inner part of the roast as steel tends to transfer heat pretty easily. However, it probably would only be an issue for a purist. Like I said, I am a "simple" kind of guy when it comes to grilling. That being said, it might actually be the reason I don't use a roto this time. For a smaller, shorter cook, it is just easier to cook on the grates.
 
Bruce and Jan, first Bruce I highly recommend NOT using only the front burner. Because that cut of meat is so lean only 2 ways to go. Really loooooooow a sloooooooow or hotter and fast. By surrounding the meat with heat i.e. using front and rear burners you will get far better results with that particular cut.
Jan, have extensive experience with rotisserie cooking (both hot and fast and low and slow) I can verify in no uncertain terms that bring that much heat into the center of that small a cut will cause the inside to turn gray, over done and unappetizing. Also beware that metal absorbs and radiates heat far differently than protein.
Bruce a rub will work just fine. I have done this cut of meat both ways wet rub and dry rub. Both delicious. I just through experience have found that again on this (and other lean cuts like it from the sirloin end) do better and stay nicer with a wet prep like I recommended.
In the end though it's your meat but it was you who asked :D
 
LOL: I get the explanation Larry. Yes, I did ask and accept all advice. One problem I see with using the front AND rear burner is that it is going to be tough to keep the temps down, even with both on LOW. I guess I could crack the lid, but that introduces the wind factor which can make the internal temp fluctuate greatly. If I cannot keep the temps down to about 300 or so with both on, I will switch to just the front with the smoker box. And then you think 125 internal temp is good for Medium Rare?
 
I did heat transfer calculations for ears in the aerospace industry. The thing is that thermal conduction a rod depends on its conductivity and it cross-section area. The spit rod is probably stainless, of which there are many varieties, but in jet engines the most common is Hastelloy. Its thermal conductivity, in units US engineers are conversant with, is not particularly high at about 6 BTU/ft-hr-degF). (Much lower than say copper.) My spit rod is 0.25"x 0.25" for a conduction path of 0.0004 ft^2. I'll do the calc tomorrow, I'm in pre-dinner wine mode now, but at the worst case, the delta T along the rod is 250F (ambient temp in the grill) - ?75F (roast temp at first onto spit) = 175F. And it occurs over what - 8"? Impact on roast temp depends on conductivity of beef but I doubt heat from the spit rod is particularly significant. 4 10,000ths of a sq ft is not much of a conduction path. Cheers.
 
Yep, I think a few hours in the Boeing Testing Labs and we can get this figured out once and for all.
 
Yea, I would just sear it on HH to build up a crust and drop it down to 250 and take it to 135 and let it rest.
Cuts from the bottom round IME don't take well to HH and anything less than 135 -140 makes them hard to cut and chewy.
But I'm also willing to learn,:)

Tim
 
LOL: I get the explanation Larry. Yes, I did ask and accept all advice. One problem I see with using the front AND rear burner is that it is going to be tough to keep the temps down, even with both on LOW. I guess I could crack the lid, but that introduces the wind factor which can make the internal temp fluctuate greatly. If I cannot keep the temps down to about 300 or so with both on, I will switch to just the front with the smoker box. And then you think 125 internal temp is good for Medium Rare?

Why are you so worried about keeping it down to 300? Bottom round is pretty lean and honestly all the ones I have cooked in the grill (yes I have tried lower heat 300 or less). but my best results on the grill with that cut have been roasting it closer to 400 hence the name "roast beef" :D
Jan you can of course give us all kind of scientific equations and try to impress but you might as well have posted in Greek. Bottom line all the science in the world does not "equate" to practical knowledge and experience. Having done more rotisserie cooking of just about anything you can name I can tell you the rod DOES cause heat to conduct into the meat. On longer cooks with a rotisserie I will actually loosely wrap the rod with foil to help isolate it and allow the foil to conduct and radiate heat away from it. And again you might come up with all kids of calculations to tell me why it doesn't work but in the end if you showed up with the beer I can show you a thousand reasons why it DOES.
Remember science tells us the bumblebee cannot fly..........................yet surprise it DOES :D
 
Larry: I have just found that longer slower cooks seem to give me a more tender meat as long it wasn't over cooked. It has been a while since I did a beef roast, but I have cooked ones that were very tender and some that were very dry and tough. That was before I started to learn to do them on a grill and don't remember the temp vs time combinations that I had used. It seemed to me that with my grill, my lower and slower cooks for most meats created the most tender results, so I was thinking along those lines for this roast. In the past, I was never checking internal temps and was probably going well past the normal M-R and probably getting to M-W to Well done range....so that probably had a lot to do with it. Now that I have the Thermoworks Smoke, I can be more precise.
I guess I will try front/back with low heat and see if I can keep it low enough. But, I am guessing around two hours or so cooking.

Wish me luck, it is going to hit the grill late this afternoon.
 
Bruce I think you're missing my point. Bottom round is inherently on the tougher side and leaner due to where it's from in the major working muscle group. So by it's nature it either needs a low/slow to a relatively high internal temp or a hotter faster to a med rare internal. In my experience cooking this cut (I do them a lot because they're good eats for the $$$$) I have found the higher cooking temp with a good rest to be the best method for flavor/texture which is why I was recommending cooking between 350 to 400 and given the weight (IIRC under 3lbs?) keeping the cooking time down to about 10 min per lb at that high heat. It will give you a nice exterior and the rest time will finish it properly to a nice mid rare if you pull the roast at around 120 to 125. Tent it, rest it 10 to 15 min and slice thin. You will have a delicious roast. Long slow cooks (especially with dry heat) on this cut will turn it into an inedible hunk. I know I have tried. Long slow typically needs a piece of meat with plenty of fat and connective tissue. i.e. a chuck or even a rib roast. Bottom round is just not marbled enough to get away with it is all. The other advantage here though is if you make a mistake bottom round is so cheap you don't have to feel bad if you screw it up :D
 
Yep, I think a few hours in the Boeing Testing Labs and we can get this figured out once and for all.

You don't want to pay for a few hours of testing at Boeing. Where I worked in Conn, a corp research lab was probably around $500 / hr.
 

 

Back
Top