Dry brine boneless ribeye roast- 1st attempt

wouldnt salting for 4 days give the exterior a corned beef flavor or maybe the salting is lighter here.

that amount of salting can't cure the meat, not past the surface anyway, and that surface will be smoked and browned as well after cooking.

heck, the smoke ring is virtually cured meat anyway, by definition, and no one ever complains that gives it a hammy taste (nitrite)

it won't be hammy or anything negative ('curing' related).

looks like you may have trimmed the fat cap off it.  i hope not. that is gold (lit. and fig.) when it browns and crisps up

lose the paper.  it isn't doing anything for you, and you don't want crossed signals.  if you want it to dry a bit at the surface, it won't where the paper touches it.

if it is a 'wife' thing (as most meat-left-in-the-fridge issues seems to be), then i can't help you. 

cooking at higher roasting temps versus lower temps has nothing to do with marbling or "low and slow" as we do with pork butts, etc.   what lower temps do is make for a longer more drawn out and gentler cook, with less carryover and more chance of taking it off at the desired temperature (internal).  it also yields a more uniform cross section, rather than a rind of overcooked surrounding a smaller core of medium-rare.

but you can cook it either way.

dried for a few days like this you will have a nice brown exterior at lower temps or higher.  i never recommend direct searing, especially with a fat cap, but that's personal preference.  seems showy, and creates work, and i seriously have no idea what is gained by it, but it is very popular.

you can start high temp (indirect) and lower temps and finishing cooking at say 250-300.  that's tough in a BGE though.  that's a method betters suited for the electric oven.*

or you can start low and then crank temps at the end (also indirect), which some say gives a great crust.

but you get a good crust at lower temps too.  there's no one method that is the only way.

do what is easiest to do when you have guests and wine and side dishes and a wife and conversation...

for me, that's a 250 roast for a few hours.  on, shut the dome, cook it, open the dome, rest, serve.  zero hassle

no reason to turn the easiest cook on the BGE into the most difficult
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EDIT   *actually, it isn't so tough to sear first and then roast cooler, but requires some finagling and small amount of planning/experience.

1.) light a fire with OLD lump (no VOCs).  keep the lid open, and lower vent SHUT.  this gives you a hot fire at the top of the lump.

2.) direct sear the roast (if that's what you want, i don't direct sear rib eye, due to the fat cap).  i find this is better for tenderloin beef, with no exterior fat.  put the meat on one side of the grid, and roll it to the other over time as it sears.  with an air dried roast you will not have any sticking.  with a fresh roast, it will take maybe a minute to 90 seconds before you can roll it to the next position.

3.) when seared, open the lower vent, take out the grid and toss in the plate setter, replace the grid, and shut the dome.  rest the meat for a few minutes (you want it to stop cooking anyway).  the platesetter, chokes lower vent, and the cold dome (because it was open the whole time) will help bring down temps.  wait until the crap smoke stops though, because you just choked the fire and it will smolder.  that's ok, because the meat needs to chill out.

4.) toss the roast on and roast slow until you hit your target temp (which is below desired final temp on your plate).

there will be less carryover because the roast was cruising slowly before it came off.  searing at the end drives a lot of heat at the roast at the very end, and your carryove is higher, so pull it off even lower

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO SCREW UP THIS COOK (unless you overcook).

sear first, sear last, no sear, higher roast temp, lower roast temp....  they all work, they all result ion a great meal.  unless you take it to the ridiculously recommended 160 as written on the package.  just don't over cook.

booksw said:

Thanks @Darby_Crenshaw.  I DID cut off the fat cap so we will see.  I saved it in the fridge so I can possibly tie it back on.  I cut if off after reading that it would block the air dry process (the same article also said to cut off the silverskin under the fat before salting for the same reason).  I took the paper off the roast after reading your post (I had it on there mostly to not bug my husband or my vegan teenage daughter, but too bad for them).  - I am going to use a leave-in thermometer and take it off at 130.  If I do sear, I will follow your instructions. "IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO SCREW UP THIS COOK (unless you overcook)."- those words will help me a lot...

fat doesn't block the drying.  it's in fact WHY you dry. 

the big thing about a prime rib roast (aside from the meat itself) is the fat cap.  we trim it sometimes to a uniform thickness, but i don't know anyone advocating taking it entirely off.  that's what gives you crust.

tying it back on won't really work, because when you carve it, it will just be a separate strip of fat on the plate, and the meat it was cut from will have no crust, just a steamed surface.

don't panic or worry. it will still be excellent, and no one will know really.  tenderloin doesn't have a fat cap either, and the meat surfaces brown instead.  all good.

silverskin can somewhat slow the salt, but it is permeable too.  i just take it off as a rule because it is tough and flavorless and undesirable.  always take that off. the fat though... fat is desirable.  again though, at this point, don't turn back.  you can't tie on or  adhere that fat unless cen-tex shoots you some meat glue. 

I cooked one of these for Easter this year and followed what these guys are saying. Dried in the fridge, did a herb rub, and cooked at 325-350 to desired IT. Probably the best meal I've ever made on the egg. Just a word of warning, you will get quite a bit of carryover cooking while resting, so pull early so you don't overshoot your desired IT. 

jeffwit said:

I cooked one of these for Easter this year and followed what these guys are saying. Dried in the fridge, did a herb rub, and cooked at 325-350 to desired IT. Probably the best meal I've ever made on the egg. Just a word of warning, you will get quite a bit of carryover cooking while resting, so pull early so you don't overshoot your desired IT. 

i found out too the hard way that carryover on a big hunk of meat like that just keeps climbing. i did a roast at a high temp because i didn't plan well, and got a beautiful lloking roast.  rested it, and ate a half hour later after making sides.  the thing was probably 175 when we sliced it.  like slicing a balsa wood log.

this is also the reason i go a hundred degrees lower.  225-250 will allow you to pull the roast and let it sit for an hour or so without nearly as much carryover as a roast done a hundred degrees hotter, or with a final sear. 325 is still considered 'slow' by some, but it is still a hundred degrees hotter than true slow-roasted prime rib.

never tent it, and never put a towel over it to "keep it from getting cold".  you WANT it to cool off.  will be juicier too.  less juice on the plate the cooler the meat is.  the dirty little secret about resting isn't that the juices are "redistributing", it's that meat is a sponge.  the colder it is, the more water it holds.  you want a balance between juice that runs freely when you cut it, and to much of that. too cold, no juiciness.  to hot, too much on the plate.

think of it this way.  when raw, the meat has the MOST moisture it can possibly have, right?

but when you cut the meat raw, it doesn't leave water all over the cutting board.  there's no juiciness, yet is has all of it's water.  and when you slice a cold hunk off the cooked left-overs, it also doesn't lead to juice all over the place.  cold roast beef doesn't have "juices".  it's firm and cold.

but the juices are there.

heat it up.  there's the juice again.

so when you rest, you are purposefully allowing the meat to cool back down to a reasonable point, so it won't run out all over the plate.  if it gets too cold, the juices won't flow at all (as with cold leftovers).  McGee talks about this a bit more scientifically. i'm just tryna paint a word picture, but it doesn't always work.

short story (too late for that!): when resting, juices don't redistribute.  they don't move from the exterior to the interior. they don't go anywhere.  but as it cools, the structure of the meat (denatured proteins play a role) is more like a sponge.  and the colder that sponge, the less free-running the liquid is within it. the better able it is to retain that internal moisture.

believe it or not, you're trying to let the roast get cold enough so that some juice comes out when you chew (or on the plate), so you perceive it as "juicey", while enough remains in the meat to keep it tender and pliable (versus hard and dry).

raw meat isn't juicey because there's no cell damage to allow the water out. overcooked meat isn't juicey because there was too much cell damage, and all the water is out. 

total goldilocks situation.  gotta find the sweet spot.

I plan around 25-30 mins/lb at around 250*F on the calibrated dome to around 125*F, until length exceeds diameter then it doesn't matter.  
Here's a great link for more detailed info:
http://playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com/1996/03/beef-standing-rib-roast-prime-rib.html  Enjoy the cook and eats.  

I am trying my FB for the first time tomorrow. Do I start the fire and immediately put FB in OR do I get the fire at the right temp and then put FB in?

Man I miss Darby. I know some don’t like him but he is one of the most helpful and valuable guys to ever come across this forum.