Standing rib roasr "prime rib" for Christmas question


 
T

Tom Raveret

TVWBB Pro
Found a beautiful 8 lb three rib Certified Black Angus Choice Rib roast today with abundant marbling and a beautiful cap and looking for suggestions on what the best way to cook it might be (the opinions I get here are usually the best ones)

I perused the NY Times site to look at a few and found one that looks interesting from Dec 19th 2023 by Lidey Heuck It's a reverse sear recipe with an overnight dry brine , 2 hr rest at room temperature and a SPG plus fresh rosemary or thyme or both slathered on with olive oil right before cooking.

The recipe is for a 10 lb roast. Mine is 8 lbs.

Recipe calls for resting the roast before cooking for 2 hours, (From my experience 2 1/2 to 3 may produce a more consistent medium rare).

Slather on the rub and cook at 250 in a shallow pan to capture drippings and roast 3 1/2-4 hrs at 250 and pull at 125 and rest 15 min - 1 hour
then Blast at 500 degrees for 5-10 min.

It seems to me that my finishing temperature would be more 135-140 which is more a medium temp .

Here's how I'm thinking of modifying the recipe and would love some feedback ad suggestions.

We are serving around 4:00pm

2 day dry brine

2 1/2 hour rest

Smoke it in the WSM ( or on a kettle with indirect heat using 1/2 full charcoal baskets) at 250 until it reaches 120 degrees

Use a couple of chunks of Cherry wood ( but am open to suggestions)

Rest 1 hour foiled and then use the Oven in ther house to reverse sear at 500 ( or maybe a bit lower demending on what the instaread says after resting )

Cut and serve

Any thoughts ? or suggested tweaks?
 
OMG please to not "pickle" such a fine piece of meat. The ONLY things a fine piece of meat needs are to score the fat cap, a good rub of salt and pepper (a TEEEEEEENSY bit of garlic MAYBE) though I really don't like when other seasonings like garlic and herbs take over good beef. Some nice smoke at a low temp until you reach internal of maybe 110. Pull, wrap and rest while getting the grill or oven up to higher temp ~400-425. Place back in grill or oven and cook to desired temp but pull about 5 deg shy of your "finished" temps. Tent and rest, a good 20 min to 30 min.
Serve.
The only things good meat needs are S&P, heat and smoke.
 
LMichaels said:
OMG please to not "pickle" such a fine piece of meat. The ONLY things a fine piece of meat needs are to score the fat cap, a good rub of salt and pepper (a TEEEEEEENSY bit of garlic MAYBE) though I really don't like when other seasonings like garlic and herbs take over good beef. Some nice smoke at a low temp until you reach internal of maybe 110. Pull, wrap and rest while getting the grill or oven up to higher temp ~400-425. Place back in grill or oven and cook to desired temp but pull about 5 deg shy of your "finished" temps. Tent and rest, a good 20 min to 30 min.
Serve.
The only things good meat needs are S&P, heat and smoke.
Click to expand...
1,000% agree

I suggest getting on YouTube, searching “Standing Rib Roast” I’m confident you’ll find better cooks than your present plan. Personally, I like mine on my rotisserie, I prefer charcoal over gas, and the pit temp at 300 to 325
 
I wouldn’t salt brine 2 days. Only overnight and exposed in the fridge.

Salt enhances beef. You don’t want the salt to announce the beef. I do like rosemary powder and it’s a nice flavor.

Less is more. I concur with the above advice wholeheartedly.
 
Putting salt on beef (even overnight) IMO really changes it for the worse. A variation on what I described using one of my pits, or Chuck's sounds outstanding. Maybe he'll invite me :D But no way would I want to turn standing rib roast (ANY quality cut of meat actually) into "corned" beef. To me that is a sin against the animal that sacrificed for us
 
How 'bout them 'Skins?

Glad to see this thread three days before Christmas. Gives me a chance to start wrapping my head around what I'm going to do.

There are a thousand different recipes and techniques to cook prime rib and they're all correct!

I have a choice 4 pounder in the freezer which is very nicely marbled, but I'm still looking for a nicely marbled prime grade in the 5-6 pound range to feed five people.

There are pro and con arguments for dry brining. The pros are, it tenderizes the beef, it holds moisture, and it enhances the flavor. With a prime grade prime rib, tenderizing the beef won't be necessary. But the other two reasons are good ones. Obviously, you want to use the correct amount of salt, which is to say, not too much. If you do it correctly, you wont taste the salt, you'll just taste the beef, and the beef flavor will be amplified. But my problem is I also like to add a finishing salt to the slice of beef on my pre-warmed plate, which you can't do if it's already salted from the dry brine. So I will often use just a small amount of dry brine - about a quarter tsp of kosher salt per pound of meat. That's about half the amount usually suggested. That way, I can get the benefits of a light dry brine and still add some finishing salt! I love the crunch of the finishing salt between my molars on the face of the meat slice when I bite into it. And I don't have a problem with dry brining two days in advance because it gives the salt its best chance to migrate all the way to the center. You don't want to dry brine and then not give the salt enough time to get to the center, because then potentially you have part of the beef over-brined and the middle not brined. But that's another reason to use a light dry brine.

If I chose to dry brine, I'd wrap it up tight in a zip lock and put it in the 'fridge so that the moisture that's drawn to the surface doesn't evaporate. You want it to rehydrate back into the beef once the salt is dissolved. Prime rib is not a chicken wing!

My rub will probably be pepper and garlic and maybe a tiny bit of salt depending on whether I dry brined.

Dry herbs are very nice but how are they not going burn at 500 F? Maybe consider adding them during the oven sear but just before you pull it?

I like your idea of resting for an hour, then searing. That will help maximize the odds of getting edge to edge pinkness which many cooks strive for, because you give a chance for the meat at the surface and just below the surface to cool. I'm not sure about the foil though. I think I'd let it rest without foil so that the surface can dry out and the first quarter-inch of meat can cool down in advance of the sear. This will minimize the band of grey you may see in the slice. There's no need to retain heat with foil because you're going sear the surface, and the center will increase in temp 10-15 degrees anyway while it's resting - with or without the foil.

Once it's seared, you'll want to rest it some more, in my opinion, but not for long. What you can do while it's sitting on the board is check the IT every few mins with your instant read and watch it as it rises just a bit. With luck, it'll hit your target temp perfectly. If it's a little short, it'll likely be very close and it'll be fine. If it wants to increase too much and it's rising too fast so that you can see it wants to go over your target, slice into it early which will stop carry over cooking.

If your wife or mother-in-law wants to know when the meat will be ready, tell her the meat will be ready when the meat is ready.

Good luck.
 
Brett has it about right, applying some salt overnight allows it to penetrate and enhance the meat in a good way. Any herbs you choose to add are up to you. It won't turn out pickled or corned.

Good luck, I'm sure it will turn out great.
 
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