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By Popular Demand�well, maybe not demand, but there seem to be a lot of questions.

This is a start.

I'll turn it into a full blown 101 as soon as I get updated photos and some time (of course), not like it's not the busiest time of the year.

I'll just post the info for now, there will certainly be questions and I�ve got a lot more info to add, but I�ll start the thread since we�re close to the holidays.

Ask away

Should you do one?

Here are some forum comments:

From Ron_L:
quote:
We just finished our Prime Rib dinner... Oh... My... Gawd! It was wonderful! I really enjoy Prime Rib, and I've cooked some good one on the gasser and in the kettle, but this one was by far the best!


quote:
I always thought Prime Rib would be pretty hard to cook. Maybe that's my own fears. You are all making it sound easy.


The forums most favorite recipe would be Stuart's Prime Rib

Stuarts Prime Rib Version 1Rub rib with following rub:

  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon dried rosemary
  • 2 tablespoons course ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons salt


Let rib sit overnight with rub. Remove wood box from smoker and preheat to 250 degrees (takes about 35 minutes). Put 4 fresh twigs of rosemary and 1 clove of garlic in wood box. Put wood box and rib in smoker. Smoke/cook at 250 for 12 minutes per pound.

After cook time, turn oven to 140 and hold for a min. of 4 hours. Note: Open the oven door for a few minutes to bring the temp down to 140 more rapidly.

Stuarts Prime Rib Version 2

quote:
Hi boys 'n' girls! About a year or so ago I posted my experiences with cooking a rib roast in my CS smoker. I have a new and I think VASTLY improved receipe to share.


I started with (2) 10 lb rib roast cut off the bone and tied back on for cooking. I let them rise to nearly room temperature before giving them a liberal rub of fresh ground Tellicherry peppercorns and kosher salt. I preheated my CS to 225 without wood since we weren't lookin' for a smoky flavor this time. At the same time I cranked up the gas oven in my range to maximum, 600?F (you MAY need to use a grill for that temp). I do this an hour before cooking just so they are properly heat soaked.

I put the roasts on a rack in a large pan and put it in the oven for 15 minutes with the convection on to give an incredible sear. I then removed the meat and put them both near the top of the CS. I installed a remote thermometer in one roast and cooked until the temp read 115?F (about 2 hours) I then decreased the temperature to 140 until the internal temperature reached 125?F (about 1 hour) It was then time to do a LONG rest for the meat so I lowered the temperature to 125 and the internal temp of the meat continued to rise to 140?F over time. I "rested" the meat at 125 indicated on the CS for 3 hours.

This made for the MOST tender and juicy rib roast I've ever had by a large margin and I have had some REALLY good ones!

I'm already planning for doing a whole fillet of beef with a similar method.

quote:
I'm curious. If you did not use any wood could you have not cooked the roasts in your gas oven?


Yes, but temperature control is MUCH easier on the CS. Also, cooling my gas oven down after the 600?F sear is difficult as it takes a LONG time even with the door open. There aren't too many ovens that will allow you to "hold" the meat at such a low temperature as 125 and 140.

This recipe will work just as well with wood as without but we have been doing a LOT of smoked salmon lately and my wife wanted this roast without smoke. Next time I'll do it with some wood now that everything else is just the way we want it.

quote:
Once you pull it out, do you let it rest, and if so for how long?


I did let it rest a bit (10 or so) but the idea is that the 3+hours at 140 is a rest of sorts. BTW next time we are going to cut the cooking time a bit more as my wife and I like it a bit more rare. This does NOT mean it wasn't tender & juicy, it was! We are just trying to make it the best we can.

quote:
If the internal temp of the roast went up to 140 degrees, was it still rare or even pink?


I know what you're thinking but if you go out and have roast beast it is often quite pink even though it is essentially cooked medium-well. This I believe is due to the long resting and slow roasting . . . I like meat TENDER & JUICY, I don't care if it's near raw or well done. I would like to do my rib roast next time with a finishing temp of about 135 or even less. When we do fillets of beef we aim for 122-125 (prior to rest) and this will give us a rare cut but that is in a 475 degree oven after a quick sear on the grill.

The problem with aiming at a lower temperature is the fact that the long rest at 140 will continue to raise the internal temp of the meat. Could you use a lower temp? Perhaps, but I think you'd be better off just hot roasting the meat (10-15 min) and then retire it to the cookshack for a long hold at 140. This is what I'll do on my next attempt.

My goal is not to conform to a "classification" of rare-well done but to make the meat the best I can make it. When I do tougher cuts of meat I need to cook them to "well done" and long, when I use fillet it's "rare" and short.

BTW it was pink and VERY juicy but not red/purple like I usually look for in a fillet.

quote:
What about the danger zone that I have been reading about? Since the meat spends so much time between 40 - 140 deg. F and now I see that you only want to get the internal temp. to about 135 deg. F, isn't this dangerous?


Bud, There's nothing to worry about because the meat is thoroughly pasteurized. Here's a quote from a reference: "Pasteurization: A process named after scientist Louis Pasteur by which every particle of milk is heated to not lower than 145� F for not less than 30 minutes and promptly cooled to destroy any harmful bacteria that may be present without affecting flavor and food value."

Since the meat is in the oven for hours, no bacteria will survive, especially in the presence of smoke, which is one of the best known preservatives.

Pls don't underestimate the importance of sanitation and proper food handling after the meat is cooked and before it is served though. BTW, more food poisoning at outdoor events is caused by potato salad than almost any other item.

Stuart

Smokin Okies Prime Rib

One of my first experiments in the new FE/CS, you can adapt the method for other CS�s or other smokers easily enough.



10 lber. Cooked it as follows:

1. Smoke setting for 1 hour (ran at about 150 smoker temp)
2. Bumped it up to 180 setting for 2 hours (smoker ran at 190 to 200)
3. Bumper it up to 275 setting for 1 hour (smoker ran at 280)
4. Finished it at 375 setting for 30 min <br />Internal temp was 125. Took it out and double wrapped it. Let it sit for two hours, outside of the smoker. Rose to 130. Was medium rare toward the outside and rare towards the inside, just like we like it.

Here's the finished product:



There are a lot of variations, including my �slice up the ribs and do bone-in rib eyes method

SmokinOkies Bone-in Ribeye/Prime Rib

Experimented with some left over Prime Rib. Cut the Prime rib down to one bone each, about 1 1/2" thick. Marinated in Italian Dressing (Mom was doing this way back in the 60's as our Family Secret Steak Marinade)



Seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning



Set FE to smoke for 1 hour, then turned up the heat to 375<br /><br />Was done in about 1 hour and 30 min to a perfect medium rare. The picture makes it look a little redder than it was.



The outside didn't get the normal "char" effect, but I done it before. After the one hour on smoke, pull the steak out while the smoker is getting up to the higer temp. Put the steak in when it gets hot enough and finish off.

Enjoy
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Smokin - Could you possibly list finishing temps and holding times to get various degrees of donenes (rare, med rare, medium and medium well). I like my PR medium to med rare. The Mrs hates the sight of blood and the best she can handle is med well.

A local TV station did a piece on PR today and it looked fantastic. I think we're ready to try one. May start with a top sirloin for practice.
Hey Wheelz,

I've not experimented with this at home, so YMMV, but a restaurant I once worked at would "cook up" individual servings of PR to order.

Basically, they slow cook a whole PR to mid rare. When an order came for mid well or well done PR, they would slice off a piece, place it a metal pan, pour just a bit of au jus over it, and put the pan in the oven until it was the desired temperature. It doesn't take long.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the end pieces of the cut will generally be more well done than the center cuts, so your wife might enjoy an "end cut" more.

There may be better ways to accomplish this, but the above tactics might give you a way to get meat that is done to both her liking and yours from the same cut. I am by no means a PR expert, but I've done a few, and they do turn out great!

Unfortunatley, a PR is one of those cuts that really are lot better in the rare to medium range, so even if it works out, your wife may not enjoy this cut nearly as much as you do.

Good luck with it!
On some other post, to keep Oklahoma from burning away, I read where a to be unnamed chef cooked a prime rib in his crockpot for Christmas. He claimed it was excellent.

From what I understand, he dry ages all his good (and especially his cheap) cuts of beef, just like in the top restaurants. This is done in a refrigerator. Modern versions with auto defrost have heat cycles, which will prematurely dry the meat, but the old type, with manual defrost, you can run for at least seven days stark naked on the shelf.

AB on the food network has a plastic type tote with holes drilled to allow some circulation without over drying.

When you are ready to cook, sear the whole roast as best you can on all sides in a cast iron skillet. (You can buy two 12" Lodges at WalMart for the price of one 10" elsewhere. So buy two and give one away for Christmas.) Get it really hot and close the door to the smoke alarm, open the windows and doors and turn on the exhaust fan. Don't use non stick, especially teflon because they can't take the heat and can form toxic gases. You might use a hopped up gas grill if you have one instead, I don't.

Then season it. Dry aged beef needs nothing but good pepper, salt, and garlic. (Everything needs garlic.) Cook it long and slow, sans crock pot, smoke about and hour or one load of wood chucks, to about 135, remove and wrap in foil. Depending how you run your CS I would wrap in foil at 3 hours no matter the internal temp and put it back in until it reaches 135, and then let it rest 15 minutes. That should bring the internal temp to about 140. which is prime rib is at its best.

Try to get the roast with the ribs attached and then debone it and tie it all back together before you dry age and roast it. Sam's and Costco here alreadly sell it without bones, but the bones keep the meat from the drying on the back side, serve as a heat sink in the cooking, and are left over for the chef for that midnight snack, or in case Santa comes back Christmas night to see how good the kids have been with their gifts. A butcher shop wil do the boning gig for you if you buy it at a good market.

Matt's post above is the way to handle those who can't handle prime, prime rib, the same goes for any left overs. Nuking it is a no, no, no! Razzer
I do the sear on the prime rib first as AB does on his rib steaks and America's test kitchen does on their prime rib. This supposedly keeps in the juices. To me it works. If you were going to marinate or use a complex rub searing will just burn all the goodies, but I hold that dry aged prime rib don't get much gooder than pretty much straight up. Rub and like go with brisket and cheaper cuts.
Well, not to take on AB and America's test kitchen, there not really BBQ experts now are they, and I'm sure they don't discuss the smoke penetrating as much as they discuss the juices not coming out.

Searing will close the pores. If the juices can't get out, then how does smoke get it? Sounds like you might just as well cook it in an oven with their method. You might have some smoke on the outside, but certainly none on the inside.

FYI, I don't sear and I don't have much reducing in the original weight going in so low and slow doesn't let much juice out.

Always interesting to hear other methods. But when my own research tells me different, I'll stick to my method.

Thanks for the info Jerry! Big Grin
quote:
Searing will close the pores. If the juices can't get out, then how does smoke get it[ed:"in"]?


Smoke is a much smaller molecule (lighter) than water or the juices contained in meat, which contain fat and fat is even larger molecule than water (oil floats on water, right?) An example would be the ever present "morning dew", which is a smaller particle than rain water, which is why dew can break down and penetrate wax on your vehicle over time. Ever see dew bead like rain on the hood of your ride. Ever seen the colesteral adds on TV? Ever used a water pipe for what ever reason? Ever burn leaves with your cell phone on your hip? It will smell the next day, as the smoke has even penetrated the plastic. Smoke will penetrate through natural convection, it just takes longer.
Thus smoke penetration of seared meat is very possible/likely, though not as significant as unseared meat. Same as smoke can penetrate cheese when done in a cold smoking method.
Just some thoughts...
Rob
Last edited by Former Member
My 2 cents. French are the best cooks. I don't think searing seals in juices. I think a good smoke to get good favor,then sear to get the good "bits" on the outside,then BACK into a low and slow smoker to get juices to moisten "bits" so they are oh-so perfect when inhaling! Jamey
Same thing but different order is key I think. Searing is just putting on a certain "patina" as it were that most people like. I just like the flavor not the dried out crunchy kind. Big Grin
I have a 14 lb prime rib, 7 bones. How many minutes per lb and at what temp should I smoke it? how long should it smoke and how much wood should I use? Not afraid of over smoking really. Also, should I finish it in foil in the smoker or in a cooler wrapped in towels, and how long should I finish it? I am lookin for rare to medium rare.

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