1st Prime Rib

retsoon,you and the CS work magic.

All you need is a little horseradish.

Isn't there a big horseradish festival around there,or is that Maryland?

o.k. Here goes. I bought my new CS about a month ago. I've been reading all these receipes until the saliva got into my keyboard. Now I finally have a comment/question. How much does the outside temp. affect the times? Yesterday for New Years I did a 4.75 lb. prime rib. The ambient (outside) temp. was 30F when I started it (fresh out of the fridge at 40F after soaking up "Stuarts rub" all night) and about 15F when I took it out. Started it at 1:30 PM and and with the CS thermostat set at 225, it took 6.5 hrs. to get my polder up to 140 Deg. The Prime Rib turned out GREAT, but I thought the times a bit longer that what you Floridians are saying. Are the Moosehead, Alaskans having increased times too? BTW, I didn't use smoke because my wife is anti. Any suggestions how to get her to like the smoke flavor. I can't eat a whole turkey by myself.

Howdy,Alan.

Your wife is probably right in not adding much smoke to that prime rib IMHO.

Try a couple ounces of apple or cherry on that turkey,and maybe even serve it chilled.

That may win her over.

Sometimes the base unit on a polder type is affected by extreme cold.

Try taking the base
into the house and plugging the probe back in when you need to do your later checks.

Hope this helps some.

Alan,

On most items the ambient temp has little effect because you will be heat soaking the product to tenderize. However, on items that are rare to med. rare I find that it does effect it a little. What I do is preheat the oven for those items for 20 mintues and then it works the same...

Cooked my very first prime rib last week. I have had a cookshack for 2 1/2 years, but never tried this cut of meat. Let me tell you about my shortcomings.

I also relied upon a meat thermometer to determine when the meat was done. It took far longer than the cookshack manual said it would to get to 140 - 145 degrees. Because of the excess cooking time, only let the meat "rest" for 30 minutes before serving, instead of the recommended 2 hours. And, with an accurate thermometer reading 143, the prime rib was medium well!!

So, I did a little research. First of all, the USDA is the authority stating that 140 is rare. But in reality, the USDA temps tend to be 10 to 15 degrees too high. (This recommendation is done in the interest of safety, not flavor.) No self respecting restaurant would cook meat to 140 and call it rare. If I had cooked until temp was 125 or so, I would have been right on the times recommended by cookshack.

Now remember I am NOT talking about ground beef here, where all of the meat has been exposed to the air and potentially dangerous bacteria. I am talking about roasts & steaks where only the exterior surface has been exposed to any potential danger. This exterior surface is exposed to higher temps that will kill any potential bacteria. Plus, the reason that cookshack recommends letting the meat rest for a couple of hours at a cooking temp of 140 is because the temperature of the interior of the meat will continue to rise during this period.

Specifically with a prime rib, cutting the meat open to inspect does not work well to determine the doneness either. On a high quality cut of beef, even one cooked medium well will look at least pink and probably even red when it is first cut. It takes 5 or so minutes exposed to the air to take on the familiar grayish color of medium well. So the first glance would lead you to believe that the meat is less done than it really is.

Prime rib and tenderloins are forgiving pieces of meat though. You can get away with overcooking, and still have your guests say that the meat was good. But you will still know how much better it could be if cooked properly. My most common mistake in outdoor cooking is to overcook the meat.

I will be cooking prime rib for 20 people next month. Hopefully this time it will be perfect so I can come back and relate a success story next time.

Hope this helps.

Great thread and congrats on the successes on the Prime Rib. And I agree, don't cut open the meat to check, get a good thermometer you can trust. And keep notes, determine the temp to take it out, for your doneness, how long you want to let it set, and the temp at the time of serving...all of those have an effect on the final product. See the CS is NOT a set and forget it unit

One note, do NOT trust the CS times in the manual are simple and I think somewhat dated. (I don't work for them, so once in a while I get to counter CS). The "manual" is a little old and I do believe there are new ones being printed. HOWEVER...

Use the advice of the forum, the times, temps and advice here are Spot On!