- Official Post
Route 66 Roast Rib Eye.
My favourite cut, the Ribeye! And this is my favourite way to treat it! I like to let the meat talk for itself, so no flavourings apart from Salt and Pepper! That bit of Dalmatian rub is enough to let some smoke flavour penetrate, and then the meat juices do the rest.
Most people would whack it in a hot oven or BBQ and roast it over an hour and a half or so. This is the traditional roast, the outside of the meat is cooked more than the inside, with the outer layers becoming quite hot.
I like to bring mine slowly to 55-59°C (131-138°F). At 60°C (140°F) the collagen fibres shrink and potentially squeeze out a lot of moisture, so I’m always aiming to minimise that! The slower the heat penetrates the meat, the less tension in the meat fibres, so the less risk of it squeezing out the moisture.
The fats begin rendering and lubricating the meat at 45°C (113°F). I want to take it to the point where the meat juices are released and the fats are rendered, so it is as moist as it can be.
To do this I bring the heat into the meat as slowly as I can.
I’m using my fantastic Stainless Steel custom built Keg BBQ, I’ll be running it at between 85°C and 120°C (185-248°F) and I expect it to take a good part of the day to cook the Ribye Roast.
I want some colour on it at the end, so I’ll need to apply that first, the temperature of the BBQ is not hot enough to brown the meat, so I’m going to cheat and apply the colour with a Gas Torch first! Yes’ I’ll burn some of the pepper like this but I’m not concerned by that, there is not a lot of rub on it and I’m more interested in good “Plate Colour”. Make sure to brown all sides!
Once the browning has been done, it’s time to put in the probes and get cooking!
I have a water pan in the BBQ to catch the drips and to provide a bit of as heat store so my temperature is stable.
I’m going to maintain heat in the keg simply by the amount of lit fuel I place into the cooking chamber, every now and again I’ll need to add another few pieces of lit charcoal to maintain the temperature in the “Zone”, I have set the temperature range on my ambient probe so I can get on with other things as it cooks.
Start with a small amount of charcoal, you can always come back and add more once the temperature settles in! Close the lid and let the keg do its thing.
Here you can see I have set up the top probe as the meat and I have a temperature range set for the BBQ.
Now we just watch and wait.
What I like about this aside from the stunning roast beef at the end is that it is a completely stress-free cook, there is no risk of overheating, it will just cruise along minding its own business while you get on with something else or catch a little nap!
It’s also foolproof and disaster proof! If it is ready before you are, or, you get a call from your guests that they are going to be an hour late, just park it! If you can drop the temperature in the cooking chamber to roughly the same as the meat, it will not overcook, it will just stay on temperature till you are ready. To do this you can remove some of the hot fuel or do like I do and use a high-tech temperature adjuster to let some heat out!
5 hours into the cook now and the ribeye is ready at 58°C (136°F), so it’s time to take it out of the BBQ.
Here is another advantage of this method, no need to rest! The meat is under no tension and will not squeeze out the juices when it is cut! You can see that here, this was pulled straight from the BBQ and sliced less than a minute later and there is no lost moisture on the cutting board!
Serve that with some roast veg and horseradish and you are in BBQ heaven!