X-mas Dinner Prime Rib Roast Finished Dry Aging

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TARM

Fire Starter
Original poster
Sep 26, 2024
73
83
Just pulled the rib roast from dry aging. Trimmed off the rind. I took some pics but forgot to take one before trimming. Also weighed it. I must have been off of the weight I thought it was fresh. I aged it for 40 days. I weighed the trimmings @ 3lb 4oz. The roast after trimming weighed 16lb 10oz so 20lb 4oz after 40 days drying which was probably 25% ish?? So starting fresh weight was around 25lb boneless. Loss about 9% in total surface area from trimming the rind. About 32% loss by weight from fresh to fully trimmed.

I went ahead and followed civilsmoker civilsmoker advice and separated the narrow end; about 3 ribs worth. My wife saw the cut end and asked me to cut it into steaks so 3x1.5" steaks and a small trimmed piece and still a huge roast @ 13lb 5oz after end cut. I dry brined it, salt only, vacuum sealed it then rolled it tight in plastic wrap to shape it more cyndrical. In the frig to do its thing for 36hr.

It then will get a brushed on spicy brown & butter schmear followed by rosemary, thyme, cracked black pepper, garlic, onion dry rub. Rest an hour or so, then into my spanking brand new Mammouth smoker @ 235°F till 130°F IT. Got it loaded with Lumber Jack Comp Blend. First time using as this is my first pellet anything. Ran some other mix for its break in.

The smoker got christened a few days ago with 2 Costco chickens that were injected and soaked in Pop's brine + STPP. Smoked on Pro for 2 hours @ 180°F and then up to 350 till done. I did findvI like it done to a high temp than not cured. After quick test I left them on till 170°F breast 175°F legs. The flavor that brine adds to chicken in insane. I had only used it on pork. Most of the time I dry brine cure. The STPP clearly increased moisture content what allowed the higher cook and still crazy moist.

Here are some pics of the rib roast. Sorry the lens must have been dirty as the pics are a bit fuzzy. Didn't notice till after the fact. Next time I will be sure to get fresh and fully aged before trimming pics as well. Got to excited with Prime Rib Fever and completely forgot.

For reference the cutting board is 22" long. Fresh it had 2"+ total over hang

Cap side after full trim.
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Rib Side after trim (It was purchased ribless)
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The rind trimmings on the scale. Very little actual loss rind thickness about ¼". Fat cap had no meat loss.
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The full trimmed roast on the scale
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Narrow end cut showing internal marbling
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Weight of the cut narrow end
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Dry salt brined vacuum sealed to help equalize moisture rrom dry aging and wrapped tight to help get a more cyndrical form. Might truss it for cooking to help keep the form; decide based o how it comes out of the wrap.

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I plan to use those trimmings for the broth base for the au jus sauce very similar to civilsmoker civilsmoker 's. Render down and roast for a good fond on the pan. Then adding the mirepoix. Red wine to deglaze. Bit of tomatoe paste & deglaze again. Add some beef broth. RSSS (Reduce, Strain, Season, Serve)

Also have the berkshire ham curing that needs to go on mid day tomorrow. Then the roast early x-mas day as the ham is finishing. Finally the cured turkey going for a heavier smoke. I deboned the dark meat including those tendons in the drum. I am going to fully wrap the dark meat in bacon as a log in foil and open to crisp at end.

I have been working on my "Triple Chocolate Nirvana Cake" that takes a few days to complete. Will post pics and recipe steps as part of my X-mas supper thread. I had to make this one gluten free for a few guests. It is a very long and expense process to make this cake but oh my is it good. I use only the best ingredients I can reasonably source. Trying my hand at a mirror glaze for a final step to give it a bit of bling. My test run was @ thanksgiving but used wheat flour not gluten free and was coffee infused and did not have a mirror glaze final coat.
 

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Just now finally got time to post up the pics from X-mas dinner.

No big dinner prep would he complete without issues. I had a sort of big one. I have a new smoker the Grilla Mammouth. I did a seasoning as well as ran a 2 chickenntest cook. Everything was flawless. As part of the setup for starting the first smoke above, of the ham, I dumped a new bag of traeger pellets as I had about 48 hrs of straight use in front of me. Everything seemed fine for the first few hours. Then I started getting low temp errors. Restarted and things were fine for about 45mins then a repeat. This happened a few times till I noticed smoke coming up from the pellet chute. To cut this brief the new sealed bag of traeger pellets were"defective". They were oversized by what looks like 25%. They jammed up the feed screw and jammmed the bottom of the feed chut. There was enough contact that the hot coals transfered from pellet to pellet in the compacted jam. Lets just say there was a bit of expeditious work evacuating the chut of all the pellets before I had a nice bonefire to roast my marshmellows on our back deck.

Got everything cleaned out well soaked.....opened a new bag of the Lumber Jack's compeition blend pellets and all was good.

This cost me a few hours time but I built extra time in so it worked out but I had no spare time.

Unfortunately, I only got a few rushed photos as I was running around and others were helping and pics just out of the smoker did not happen.

I first want to thank civilsmoker civilsmoker for his help and guidance on my Standing Rib Roast Cook. Cutting the narrow end and smoking @ 235°F pulling @ 130°F Gave me a perfect edge to edge medium rare prime rib.

A big thank you to both chopsaw chopsaw and SmokinEdge SmokinEdge for their guidance on curing and smoking my berkshire ham and bronze turkey. Not to mention my last min pleas to appease my insecurities of edcond guessing on cooking time temps LOL
They came out great. A thanks has to be mentioned to the late Pop's and DaveOmak for their fantastic brines and techniques for curing. The list of those their shared knowledge helped and continues to do so is extremely long and always growing.

The menu:

Prime Rib Roast 40 day dry aged. Dry salt brine for 36 hr. Rosemary, Thyme, Granulated Garlic & Onion, Cracked Black Pepper made up the dry rub. I was applied on top of a butter mustard schmear.

I used the rind trimmings of the dry age to roast rendering the fat to pour onnthe finished Rib roast. The rest wassimmered for a few hours and combined with a mirepoix, tomato paste, a few red wine deglazing cycles. A sachete of fresh herbs added near the end. Everythjng was strained reduced till it coated a spoon well. Lastly tge pan dripping of the Rib Roast was added. Final seasoning to taste made the prime rib brown sauce. I also served a traditiinal creamy horseradish sauce.

The Prime Rib came out perfect. The dry aging did its magic and @ 235°F took 9 hrs to hit 130°F and rested for 2 hrs wrapped in 140°F oven for a perfect med rare you could cut it with a fork and had deep flavor and juicy.

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The Berkshire Ham was 16.5lb boneless fresh. It was cured with DaveOmak's injection brine and cured in a vac bag for 14 days. Placed it in a sock and hung it for the cook. Started @ 180°F for 5 hr then increased to 200°F till IT was 160°F. Was pulled frommthe sock, wrapped, and rested till 1hr prior to serving. Then into a 450°F oven with a Bourbon Honey Brown Sugar Glaze till it set and thickened well.

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The turkey I did not get pics of as it was a casuality of the rush at the end as it was the last meat thru the smoker. I did a 2 day injection submersion Pop's cure. I deboned the dark meat removing all the tendons in the drumsticks. I rolled the dark meat in a sheet of home cured bacon making a "fattie" log wrapped in foil. One for each side. After smokingnthe were removed from foil and the bacon crisped up. Then cut between each bacon strip. I removed the back bone and rib cage from the remaining carcass. Smoked the breast then removed from the bone and cut cross grain. Cooking time was 1hr @ 350°F in the smoker.

Made a basic turkey gravey from the roasted trimmings wings neck etc then deglazed simmered, mirepoix, reduced seasoned a bit of cornstarch slurry to a light coat thickness.

I also made yorkshire pudding given the sauces/gravey. As I had a number of gluten allergy guests I found you can make a fantastic york using only corn starch in place of AP flour. Who would have thunk!?!

My wonderful wife handled all the sides, appetizers, finger foods, drinks, along with everything else that goes into hosting a 20-25 person Christmas dinner party and celebration. She is anazing wife, mother and simply a wonderful person. Could not ask for more and certainly far more than I deserve.

The last part of the menu I was responsible for was a chocolate cake. Its a rather extravagant under taking. I had a issue with the mirror glaze application that left ripples and was totally avoidable. Chaulked up to a learning experience.

Cake has 4x 8" round layers, each layer is coated in a chocolate wash, between each layer and sides is Chocolate Mousse layer equal thickness of cake layer. It is then coated in a layer of chocolate ganache. Final layer is a waterfall style chocolate mirror glaze. Decorated with chocolate leaves and a tuff of gold leaf.

Browned Irish Butter,
Wash Honey Bourbon with the browned butter and refrigerate for 48 hrs.
Heavy Cream is infused with whole coffee beans refrigerated for 24hr
Browned Butter block removed.
Bourbon filtered thru coffee filter. Remaining bits added to butter.
Butter melted again. Infused with instant esspresso powder.

Cake Batter: AP flour (subbed gulten feee flour), baking soda, brown sugar, salt, eggs, ice coffee, ½ cup butter washed bourbon, espresso infused butter, cup of ice coffee, vanilla paste, Valrhona dutched Cocoa Powder, 6oz chopped Valrhona Caraque 56% Dark Chocolate Semi-sweet block

Cake wash: chopped Valrhona Caraque 56% Dark Chocolate Semi-sweet block, brown sugar, whole milk, vanilla paste.

Chocolate Mousse: strained coffee bean infused cream, egg yokes, brown sugar, confectioners sugar, chopped Valrhona Caraque 56% Dark Chocolate Semi-sweet block

Chocolate Ganache: 1:1 Valrhona Equatorial Semi-Sweet Chocolate 55% and heavy whipping cream

Chocolate Mirror Glaze: Valrhona Dutched Cocoa Powder, 2 drops red food color, platinum gelatine sheets, heavy cream, water, white sugar.

With a multi layer cake such as this you neded to make a dense cake to hold the weight of the various layers. You also nedd to refrigerate and then freeze the cake at different stages to be able the apply the next layer. You need a cake turn table, adj form cake ring, acetate sheet, piping bags, cake leveler cutter, icing spatulas & scraper. Lots of patience and good amount if time spread over 3-5 days.

Why put in all that work? Once done you end up with a chocokate cake unlike anyother. It is simply amazing well balanced decadent chocolate cake. Each part complements the others. Not overly sweet as so many extravigant cakes can be. No sickening sweet icing.

For this time I had to make a couple adjustments. A number of my guests are gluten intolerant so I had to work out a gluten free flour ix. The other was a couple werenot fans of coffeeflavors. This only requirednot infusing the cream with coffee beam The other added coffee boosts the chocolate and there is no overt coffee flavor on the palette.


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Unfortunately the pictures were rushed and really do not do it justice. If wanted I can post the full recipe. Be forewarned if you use the premium chocolates and cocoa powder as I used this is a quite expensive cake to make. There is 3lbs of chocolate block/nibs and roughly 3 cups of cocoa powder plus the bottle of bourbon. But if you choose to its si ply tye very best chocolate cake I have ever tasted and numerous others have said tge same after tasting. Its a very rich cake so while a 8" round may seem small a good serving slice would only be about 1" thick at the end of a full course dinner. Its enough to serve 15+ people.

Next cook I am setting time to get proper photos etc.
 
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Those are some good looking eats and really glad your cook turned out!!! ….oh and by the way that roast was HUGE!
 
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Thanks guys.

It was well worth it .

Thank you all for the help

The left over prime rib and gravey was really good the next day. Onlynthing left now it a bit of ham.

People really liked the bacon wrapped dark meat cured smoked turkey. Was not sure how that would fair. But it has bacon so hard for it not to be good lol.

Now to see what people onnhere are cooking up for New Years and then the Super Bowl parties. BBQ and football are mace for each other.
 
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