So the store had a fantastic deal on ribeye roasts- 2/3 off. I figure I will BBQ / slow smoke it tomorrow, but I’ve never done a beef roast before. Plenty of briskets and pork shoulders, but those of course you slow bbq until the interior temp gets north of 190 to render the collagen.
This being a ribeye roast, just slow-smoke like a pork shoulder, but only until interior temp reaches 130 or so? Cut into steaks and just grill them? Something else?
I do cuts like this on my smoker to 125 or 130, rest for 30 minutes, and then finish with a sear on a very hot bbq.
Here’s a page I found early on in my barbecueing days that have been very helpful.
Unfortunately, another page I liked, and fortunately printed out for my own use, is no longer available. It was here:
I would imagine you really have two options- smoking it until it’s basically rare, and then searing like @FinsToTheLeft suggests, or going to about 203, which is when you’ll get to the point where the connective tissue changes from collagen to gelatin and the meat gets that long-cooked texture like most slow-smoked barbecue, or things like pot roasts.
From what I can read, a ribeye roast is pretty tender, and not something you really need to smoke for 12 hours or anything like that like you would a rump roast (or brisket), and @FinsToTheLeft is on the money with his technique.
I’d probably aim my smoker for 225 and smoke it until about 120-125 (a bit lower) and then sear it. That’s probably only a few hours- I’d guess under 4, so unless you’ve got a pellet smoker or something, you might want to have something else to smoke so as to not waste the wood/charcoal.
Yep, this sounds like a winner. To sear it, instead of getting my smoker and my grill going later for the sear, I’ll probably slow-smoke it in my Weber kettle grill using the circular snake coal method I learned from Cook’s Country, and works so well on briskets, as I talked about in my Barbecued Beef Brisket! thread from a few months ago. Then the 1/2 hour rest is plenty of time to spread the coals around, add a few more, and vents open to get it good and hot for the sear.
How about the rub? For pork shoulders, I usually start with a Cajun spice rub like Tony Chachere’s and add a bunch more herbs and spices. But with a ribeye roast I’m thinking to maybe keep it simpler, to let the beef flavor come through. But maybe not so simple as a Dalmatian rub.
I generally keep it simple for beef with SPOG - salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder. I also like the Trader Joe’s coffee rub.
I’ve never encountered this phrase, and it took me a few seconds to puzzle out.
I like it!
Dalmatian rub:
I would do a homemade Montreal steak seasoning. Quick and dirty recipe
Salt and pepper to taste
Equal parts coriander (the spice - not cilantro), garlic powder, onion powder, dill seed, paprika (I personally prefer it without paprika, and add a little bit of red pepper flakes. Grind all together
Some people would also add a little ground mustard or ginger to the mix.
The ratio can differ depending on your tastes. I prefer 3/2/2/1/0 coriander/onion/garlic/dill/paprika
This sounds good. Coriander is an interesting ingredient. I have everything but the dill seed and the onion powder.
This is exactly the method the guy in my link settled on for perfect prime rib. (Link goes to the exact section.)
So great, you may be thinking—you can sear first or you can sear after, and it makes no difference. What’s the big deal?
Well the big deal, as some of the more astute readers may have noticed in the timing above, is that if you are starting with a completely raw roast, in order to get a well-browned crust, it takes around 15 minutes in the hot pan, during which time, the meat under the surface on the outer layers of the roast is busy heating up and overcooking, just like they did when roasted in a 400°F oven.
On the other hand, in order to get a well-browned crust after the prime rib has roasted, you need only around eight minutes in the pan. Why is this?
It all has to do with water.
In order for the surface of a roast to reach temperatures above the boiling point of water (212°F), it must first become completely desiccated. When searing raw meat, about half the time it spends in the skillet is spent just getting rid of excess moisture before browning can even begin to occur. You know that vigorous sizzling sound when a steak hits a pan? That’s the sound of moisture evaporating and bubbling out from underneath the meat.
On the other hand, a prime rib that has first been roasted has had several hours in a hot oven, during which time the exterior has completely dried out, making searing much more efficient, and thus giving all but the very exterior of the meat less of a chance of overcooking.
But then, I thought, 20 to 30 minutes is exactly how long a rib roast needs to rest anyhow. What if I were to first cook it at a low temperature (200°F or lower), take it out of the oven, allow it to rest while I heated the oven to its highest temperature (500 to 550°F), then pop it back in just long enough to achieve a crust?
What I achieved was nothing less than Prime Rib Perfection:
Got the roast on the grill a little before 11am EST. I did an improvised version of the Montreal steak seasoning that @Saint_Cad Mentioned- no dill seed, so I substituted mustard seed instead. No onion powder, so I doubled up on garlic powder. Had a taste of the rub and it was pretty good.
Nice Solost Beef Rub™
Awesome roast. I couldn’t get the grill temp down much below 280 without being concerned I’d kill the coals entirely, so I had to rest the roast in a warm oven for about an hour and a half once it came up to around 125 in the center. And it was still an early dinner, even for a Sunday. But the reverse sear still worked perfectly — all pink and juicy inside right out to the crust, which was delicious. I kept cutting myself off little crust pieces as I was carving the roast. My makeshift Montreal-style steak rub complemented the beef flavor nicely without overpowering it. I think I’m going to experiment with versions of that rub and try it out on brisket in the future.
That works. Mustard seed always fine in a rub. I’ve found that – at least to me – dill seed tastes a hell of a lot like caraway, just maybe gentler, so I would think caraway would be a reasonable substitute, though perhaps use less caraway than dill by volume, as caraway is a bit stronger.
Yeah, I didn’t mind not adding dill. It’s not my favorite herb (or spice- is it an herb if it’s dill weed, but a spice it it’s dill seed?). I mean, I don’t mind the flavor but it’s not a go-to, which is why I didn’t have any (in weed or seed form) on hand. Caraway seed I love in German-style sauerkraut, but other than that I don’t know what I’d even think to add caraway seed to. I guess you could say caraway seed is the last thing on my mind.
It’s good in beef stews. When I make Hungarian goulash, it’s one of the spices that is common (but not required) to add. Paprika, salt, pepper, caraway.
Interesting. In another food thread here, someone (may even have been you) posted a link to an older Beef Stroganoff recipe that didn’t use mushrooms but did include allspice and mustard. I tried making it and I found that allspice (mustard too, but not as much) works very well with beef & sauce type dishes. A gumbo with greens recipe you gave me included allspice, and now I add allspice to my gumbos routinely. It pairs really nicely with the flavor of a well-browned roux.
Now that we’re getting into stew season, I will definitely try caraway seed with stews or goulashes at some point. Maybe it’ll become the next allspice for me.
This is your God Given Right as the Cooker of Meat.
Emphasis added. You must remedy this lack immediately. Onion powder is a requirement for so many things. It’s one of the few (including garlic powder) that we buy in the big containers because it’s not in there long enough to go stale or get clumped.
The roast sounds awesome. Hopefully the next phase of the internet allows for the sharing of food online. 