Dry-Brined, Reverse-Seared Prime Rib

Dry brining is the technique of flavoring and tenderizing meat using just salt. Essentially, the salt pulls moisture from the surface of your meat through diffusion. It then dissolves into a very concentrated wet brine using the food’s own moisture and diffuses back into the meat,creating equilibrium on either side of the surface of the meat. Okay, so that’s the flavor boost part. Here’s where the tenderizing comes in. As the salt solution gets pulled back into the meat, it will start to denature and breakdown proteins it comes in contact with. This ensures that the contracting filaments in proteins relax and that the cells absorb more moisture, keeping them tender during cooking.

Reverse searing is when you cook food at a very low temperature until its center hits an optimal temperature. Then you drastically increase the heat to char and roast the outside, while not impacting that perfect internal temperature. This cooking technique helps retain moisture and tenderness, especially with meats. Muscle fiber tends to shrink and contract when introduced to high heats. With roasts, it keeps the dreaded gray ring to a minimum. Repeat after me, “Just because the rib cap has a ton of marbling, does not mean it’s okay to over cook it!”

As a matter of fact, if you have the time, feel free to cook your roast at the very lowest your oven will go. Mine cooks as low as 150°F (66°C). This basically means, none of the meat in my roast, aside from the crust, would even be able to get over medium doneness. Conversely, you can roast up to 250°F (121°C) without introducing the maillard reaction. There will be a bit more gray (doneness) in the rib cap, but not enough to really worry about it. 200°F (93°C) is really just my happy medium between the two.

Not everyone likes meat cooked to medium rare. And, that’s okay! I give friends a hard time, but honestly I just want them to be happy with what they are eating. If you happen to fall into that boat, here’s a chart with different levels of doneness and their corresponding internal temps, before and after carryover cooking.

I know the timing I gave in the recipe is a huge range. For a smaller roast, start checking the internal temperature with an instant read thermometer at 2 hours and for a larger one, start checking at 3. Also, be aware, the last 20°F (11°C) goes pretty quickly. Keep close to the oven near the end.

Timing the point at which your roast is ready is really a learned skill. There are many reasons why a prime rib could take less or more time to come to temperature. 1) Initial internal temperature before roasting. 2) The temperature of your oven. 3) The diameter of your roast. If you are really worried about overcooking, you can also use a probe thermometer that stays in the roast while it cooks in the oven. I do still recommend that you double check with an instant-read thermometer. Sometimes a probe thermometer can conduct extra heat down the metal prong and show as hotter than the roast’s actual temperature.

To help you decide on bones or no bones for roasting, here’s an easy consideration that relies solely on your kitchen equipment.

If you have a roasting rack, use the recipe as written. A roasting rack keeps the roast from touching your roasting pan, so there is no need to have the bones re-attached. If you do not have a roasting rack, keep the bones tied (trussed) and let them work as an insulator from the bottom of the pan. (more on trussing with bones below)

If you keep the bones tied on and use a roasting rack, prepare for your roast to have an ombre result of doneness, with a rare bottom. I like to call that decision “BIG regret”.

We have established if you don’t have a roasting rack it’s best to keep the bones tied onto the roast while cooking. You still need to prep the meat however. Some supermarkets use stretchy cord to truss their standing rib roasts. In this case, just slide them off, dry and salt the meat, and then reattach the bones to dry brine with the same fastenings.

If your roast doesn’t have any cord or has a rigid butcher’s twine. Here’s what you do. Cut the bones from the roast as described in the recipe above or cut the twine keeping the bones attached to the roast. Then, prep the meat for dry-bringing. Lastly, tie new cord around your roast and bones with kitchen twine. This style of truss, will not be continuous like the non-bone roast. Using separate pieces of twine, circle the roast and bones one at a time beginning in the center of the cut. Tie and knot each length of rope with loops/ties on each side of a bone working your way out. By starting in the middle you ensure the meat won’t slide around and gape or off-set in any places along to the bone. Kind of like, taping wrapping paper to a box before folding so it doesn’t move.

Okay, I tested beef back ribs, oxtail, and neckbones to determine what I kind of already knew. Use them all. I am so sorry! lol.

Here’s the deal. Each of these imparts a different flavor and/or texture than the other so if you want a full flavored au jus, it’s best to use all three. If you cannot find all three here’s a description to how each stock renders down. This way you can decide what works best for your tastes. This will also be helpful if you cannot find all three cuts in the store.

Beef back ribs, give the best overall flavor. The stock from these is bright, bold, and flavorful. There isn’t a ton of body, but if you only want to use one kind of bones, I would recommend these over the others. Additionally, if you want to make a gravy the body of the stock won’t even matter, as a roux will thicken the stock.

Oxtail, was my runner up in flavor. They had a noticeably lighter and less bold flavor than the beef back ribs. However, oxtail is a powerhouse in texture. Because oxtail has so much cartilage and fat, it creates a stock that has a very silky, creamy mouthfeel. Using these bones in my au jus gave it a decadent texture that was missing from just the beef back ribs.

Neck bones definitely had the least amount of flavor and body of the three. These should only be used for enhancing flavor. I say this because, the flavor that was present was beautifully deep and meaty. I attribute this to the shear amount of marrow in these bones. Mixing the neck bone stock into my au jus, really rounded everything out.

Take a look at my resource blog post about purchasing prime rib to learn all of the inside information.