Prime Rib and Sear Questions

[Jumanji]

Been shopping for a prime rib for Christmas.  Third smoke with the 3D.  Have seven people for dinner.  From what I have read on various sites, recommendation is half-pound to one pound per person, or four ribs for eight people.  We're going to have three sides (rosemary potatoes, cream spinach, strawberry salad, and rolls).  For bone-in, shoot for 3/4 lb per person?  Or rib count?

Have been watching Sams Club for a deal, and all they have this year is boneless rib roast.   Funny thing is the butcher trims the bones off there in the store, and they sell the boneless meat.  Good price - $10 per lb.  I'm thinking instead of buying the bone-in prime rib at HEB, which is $12 per lb.  Seems silly to be paying more for meat and bones, than just meat.  But its a special dinner, and I think the rib-attached roast would taste better.  Thoughts?

Finally, I will want to reverse sear.  Here is where I need the most help.  Wife says with everything going on, she has the oven tied up.  I have a relatively new, three-burner gas grill.  Has the flame deflector shields on each burner.  (Don't remember their technical/marketing name, but it is supposed to reduce flare-up.)  This will easily get up to 500 deg F with the three burners.  Of course I don't want to continue to cook the roast, just brown the outside fat.  Can you give me specifics on technique here?  Use a pan underneath or direct on grill?  Foil?  Am thinking I might be able to get up to 500 deg F by turning on just the two outside burners, and put the roast in the middle for searing, which might be best?  To be honest, this is the part that I am least comfortable doing.  Maybe because I know the 3D is going to get all of the previous steps perfect!

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[barelfly]

Rib roast is also what I make for Christmas dinner. This year will be my first smoked roast, but in years past I've always cooked in the oven at low temps with a sear in a large heavy frying pan to start. You could do a frying pan on the grill for the sear, just enough to get the carmelization you are looking for and not to cook below the surface.

I'll probably be in the same situation as you with the oven tied up, so will either do the grill or use my cast iron skillet on the big burner for just a minute on the sides needed.

[Jumanji]

The heavy fry pan on the grill sounds like a good idea.  I bet a cast iron skillet would be great for that.  OTOH, I can see that once it goes on the bbq grill, its probably taken off of the approved list for the kitchen!

Ok, so I purchase a 7.5 lb bone-in prime rib.  All trimmed up.  Need to cut the strings to season, as planning to follow DM (Tony's) recipe.  I have kitchen twine to tie them back.

Only questions remaining.  Tony's recipe says 5 oz of hickory/cherry mix in the recipe, but then in his picture caption it says after smoking with 3 oz of wood mix.  Which is correct?

And 7.5 lb prime rib to 128 deg F internal should take how long?  Is there a time per pound rule?

[G man]

I noticed too the 5oz then 3oz discrepancy too.

As it is beef, I'd go for 5 or 6 ounces!  Load it up!

[barelfly]

I plan on using 5-6 oz for an 8.5lb roast. I'm also planning on it taking about 5 hours, as this is what it has taken in my oven in the past cooking at 200*.

[Jumanji]

Did the prime rib yesterday.  Followed DM's (Tony) recipe.  Used 5 oz total of cherry and hickory.  The hickory from Smokin-It, and the cherry from this weeks order from Smokinlicious.  About half and half on the wood.

Anyway, although the prime rib turned out tasty, there were a couple of issues.  First, we never really got any smoke.  The smoker was set at 200 deg F.  Kept checking the smoke stack, and never really saw any smoke.  Outside air temp was around 70 deg.  Resisted the temptation to open the smoker and look inside.  At the start of the smoke, the box temp registered 70 deg and probe temp 37 deg, which was probably spot on.

Another surprise was that the 7.5 lb prime rib took six full hours to get to 127 deg F internal temp.  At that point, as we were running much later than expected, I took it from smoker directly to gas grill at 500 deg F for reverse sear.  I did that for ten minutes, which made the outside look pretty good.  A bit longer than called for, but I had another one degree internal temp I wanted.  Let the roast sit for about fifteen minutes, then cut it.  Inside looked real nice and cooked medium rare as I wanted.  Sorry no picture of that.  Here is a pic of the prime rib after searing.

So later in the evening, went back to clean things up.  What I found was that the two blocks of wood were unburned.  The cherry had a black char on the bottom, but the top was unblackened wood.  It is the longer piece near the bottom of the photo.  Both blocks have been flipped over so you can see the extent of the char.  The tops were both clean, unburned wood.  You can even see on the hickory block at the top, that the only thing burned at all was a small corner.  So this confirmed why I never saw any smoke - the wood never burned.  And the meat did not have any smoke taste, or smoked appearance, so thankfully I used a really good rub that brought in some flavor.

So number one concern is why no wood char or smoke - basically yesterday's "smoke" was nothing more than an outdoor oven.  Second issue is that this smoke took six full hours vs several others that suggested should take 4-1/2 hrs.  And I took the prime rib off at 127 deg F.  Also, the pork tenderloins I did earlier in the week (two at 2.5 lbs total), took 1-1/2 hours total to get to 145 deg F (225 deg box temp), whereas others suggested 1 hour for same amount of meat.  The pork tenderloins though did have smoke, and the single 2.5 oz block of wood was almost completely ash.  Finally, here is south Texas, ambient temp has been 65-70 deg.  So that not issue.

Sounds like I have a problem?  But with what?

[Jumanji]

Here are some more pictures of the wood.  The Smokinlicious cherry wood was just ordered and delivered this week.  The cherry moisture content was listed as 20%.  The hickory is what came with the smoker, received about a month ago.  The other two Smokin-It hickory pieces I have used for smoke (ribs and tenderloin), both smoked all the way to ash.

Each piece of wood was about 2.5 ounces.

First two pics - 1256 and 1257 - have the wood blocks flipped upside down from how there were in the smoker box.  You can see the corner of the hickory block is burned off, and the middle of the cherry block has a burn hole.  Pic 1257 is just looking from the other side.  The hickory has a second corner burned off.

Pic 1258 has the upper surfaces of the blocks facing the camera.  These surfaces would have been on the top, in the smoke box.  Pic 1259 just shows the sides.  Looks like I picked up more light in the picture.  Really it just shows the sides were uncharred.

Should I have been more careful when placing these and align a hole to the middle of the wood?  From the seasoning smoke, I know the back of my wood box is the hotter area, and I had the wood blocks in this smoke placed near the middle and back.  Again, this is after a six hour smoke.  If things had performed as expected, should be nothing but ash when I opened the box.  The unburned blocks confirmed why I never saw any smoke.

[bufo55]

Did you forget to poke a hole in the foil at the bottom of the smoker, through the drain hole? This lets a small amount of air in so you get slow combustion of the wood. It's also critical for proper circulation of heat.

Happy Holidays everyone. I just started my serial smoke of turkey then rib roast for the family feast tonight.

[barelfly]

The times I've cooked I haven't had the problem with the wood, but cooking does take longer than what is shown on some of the recipes. I'm starting to think that the time to cook starts when the box temp gets to the temp needed and is stable for a bit. I haven't timed it to see how long that takes yet, but that is what I've noticed during my first 4 cooks so far.

As for my wood, I get a full black char on the wood and it is very brittle when I clean it out.

[DivotMaker]

Thanks for catching the typo - fixed!  I use 5-6 oz of wood.  For low-temp smokes, I sliver my chunks into several thinner pieces - works better with the 200 temp.  You can also use chips.  Full-size, fresh Smokinlicious chunks are hard to keep going at 200.  Forgetting to poke the hole in the bottom foil will also work against you!

[Jumanji]

I didn't forget to poke the hole.  Actually had some grease come thru and into the pan below, so that not the issue.

Tony, how wide do you make the slivers?  To something like chips, or 1/4 inch thick, or what.  And at what temp cutoff do you do this?  Like I said, the 225 deg F pork tenderloin smoke went well and I was down to about 1/4 of a hickory chunk left after the 1-1/2 hour cook.

[barelfly]

Michael, as for the wood chunks, I did have the same issue as you. The chunks were black on the bottom and split, but didn't seem to burn on the top. I figure going forward, at a low temp cook I'll place the chunks over my hot spot with no foil. But seeing Tony's response, I'll also try to make the chunks smaller to help them burn.

Despite that, thought it had great flavor and really happy that I smoked the prime rib this year vs the oven.

[Jumanji]

Jeremy, my hotspots are in the middle and toward the back, which is where I placed the two chunks.  I hate to stock up on chips, after just getting this box full of wood from Smokellicious.  Maybe Tony or someone else can give guidance as to how small the chunks need to be cut to, before abandoning chunks for chips?

[Jumanji]

One more thought/question. Since both of my finished temp target smokes have taken much longer than the guidelines or what others have experienced, I am wondering whether the box temp is actually as high as shown on the PID.  Especially since this last 200 deg F smoke never started the wood smoldering or smoking. 

So is there a way to check the box temp with the PID?  I don't own a separate temp meter with a long cable probe.  For instance, can I set the box temp to 225 deg F with a probe temp target of the same, and see if box temp gets to that?  Or am I going to damage the probe with temp that high?  No wood, or meat or anything in it.

[SuperDave]

It won't damage the probe.  When your smoke box is pushed all the way in, how far above the element is the box?  I'm wondering if it is sitting too high above the element.  200 should have burned those chunks on a smoke that long.