Cooking For Engineers

[Martin Wakefield]

17 lb. standing rib roast (7 bone) was aged uncovered in fridge for 36 hours and then left on counter covered with a cloth from 10pm until 11.30am to warm up. The house stayed around 70 degrees through the night. Roast temp rose from 39F to 63F. Seared roast and then cooked at 200F. Watch oven temp and adjust as mine varied from 215F to 190F. Used a DeltaTRAK instant read thermometer and measured roast in center (length and diameter) every hour. 11:30 Start - 63F; 12:30 - 76F; 1:30 - 89F; 2:30 - 104F; 3:30 - 119F; 4:30 Finish - 130F. We ate at 5:15 and roast was perfect. A measurement taken about 1.5 inches from the end had a temp of 138F so not much difference throughout the roast. Color was perfectly consistent from edge to center. My conclusion is that with a real room-temp start, all size rib roasts from 8 lbs to a full roast will cook rare in 5 hours.

[Michael Chu]

Interesting. I think one of the reasons why roasting would take about teh same amount of time is that the circumference is basically the same on most rib roasts and when we say 8 lb. or 17 lb. roast we are really making reference to how many ribs long the roast is. Since the roast is mostly increasing in length only, the time it takes for the heat to penetrate from the surface is similar to a smaller roast. A really small roast (1-2 rib) may have a shorter roast time because of the heat flow from the ends...

[GaryProtein]

SAVE THE SEARED END WITH ALL THE SEASONING AND SPICES FOR ME!!!

Cutting the standing rib roast into 1 1/2" to 2" thick rib-eye steaks are great seared and cooked rare, but for me, on the standing rib roast, the end cut can't be beat.