Just a side note. The NYT recipe, and one or two comments here, suggest salting a rib roast prior to roasting. I realize the OP doesn’t do this, but I just wanted to add that my preferred approach, instead of salt, is steak spice. Most steak spice has a high proportion of salt anyway, achieving the same purpose, but adds extra flavour.
The stuff I use is Barberian’s, but as it’s marketed by a local steakhouse, it’s probably only available locally. The ingredients list isn’t very helpful – “sea salt, salt, fine herbs and spices, garlic, onion”. But many other steak spices containing salt should work well and add extra flavour.
I roasted an 8 pound roast today. And i tried the reverse sear for the first time. Mine started at 41 in the interior (i let it sit out of the fridge for 2 hours before i cooked it) and i underestimated how long such a huge chunk of meat would take to cook, but mine, also, came out very nice.
A dirty secret in my house is that i don’t actually want all of the roast to cook to the same doneness, as i like it on the rare side of medium rare, and my husband likes it on the well side of medium well. So having some exterior slices that are more cooked than the interior is a win. I did cook the entire thing to USDA food safety (based on the combined time& temp method, not the “safe after 1 second at this temp” method) because my husband is immune compromised, and i don’t want to take chances with his health.
I did a 5 lb (2-bone) SRR today mostly following my advice above except for starting at 250F instead of 200F. It took just about four hours to cruise up to an internal 135F. I pulled it and let it rest, and carryover cooking took it to 143F, making me think I’d overcooked it. Still, I proceeded with a 550F blast for 6 minutes (not 8, because of the smoke that was already starting to billow out of my oven). It was damn near perfect. Reddish-pink with a very small gray band. I wasn’t too concerned about food safety because I figured I was practically pasteurizing it with the low heat for a long time. And I get a couple of bones to gnaw on for lunch tomorrow.