Cooking two small roasts (beef) - double the time, or not?

Cafe Society
1

I have always followed a rather simple recipe for cooking a 3 to 3-1/2 lb. beef roast: dub with spices, coat with olive oil and Worcestershire sauce, preheat oven to 500F, put roast in oven, sear for 20 minutes, turn off oven and bake on retained heat for about an hour.

I use an in meat thermometer with a readout I can view outside the oven and take it out at about 130F, cover with foil and let rest for 10 minutes or to reach 135F before carving.

This time, I have TWO such roasts. I am cooking them at the same time, in the same pan, but not touching (they are spaced apart). Do I time this the same way as a single roast? It seems to me it should take longer, as two roasts will be absorbing twice the heat from the oven (energy transfer), but probably not twice as long, nor as long as the recipe would call for a single 6-7 lb. roast (about 12 minutes per lb. = about an hour and a half after the searing)?

I have the thermometer so if I mis-time things it’ll just be a late dinner, but what do you think?

2

Definitely not double the time, since the mass is less than if it were one large roast. I would cook it for the same period, check the temp, and if dinner is late, so be it.

3

I’ve done this. Two roasts will take the same amount of time as one roast of the same size (as long as they’re spaced apart enough). There may be twice the energy transfer, but the oven is supplying plenty of heat energy. The amount of time to cook is determined by how far the heat needs to travel to bring the center temp up to where you want it. If anything, might make it 5 minutes longer.

4

That’s what I’m banking on - that by spacing them apart, for proper convection, it shouldn’t take much longer than the usual single roast time - but the oven is rather small and we’re talking about cooking with the gas off, so it occurred to me that I might be underestimating the energy transfer involved.

I am still using a remote meat thermometer so I won’t be undercooking anything, and I’ll find out in about 45 more minutes if my assumption about cooking time was right or not :slight_smile:

5

I’m getting my guess of same amount of time in now - and am looking forward to hearing how yummy those roasts were shortly.

6

This. Sorry for the lack of follow up, just realized I never reported back.