When cooking a rib roast the goal is to have nice juicy roast that has a nice brown crust and no over cooked gray areas. You want it to be a nice even rare to medium rare from edge to edge with that crispy flavorful crust.

Two temperatures are important: 125 degrees which is medium rare and 310 degrees which is the temperature at which the Maillard reaction occurs. That is the process by which amino acids and reducing sugars recombine to form that crust and fantastic roasty aromas. Above 310 degrees, meat will quickly brown and crisp once the moisture in the meat is driven off.

Here is the secret to achieving that.

First buy a good and accurate meat thermometer. We want an center temperature of about 120-125 degrees when done for rare to medium rare.

Salt is your friend for that crust. I like to salt my rib roast an hour or two before putting it in the oven. I oil the roast with butter or olive oil and the sprinkle it heavily with a nice kosher salt along with course ground pepper, garlic powder and rosemary.

Put your roast on a rack in a pan. Insert the oven safe thermometer. Cook your roast until the thermometer hits 120 degrees. Pull the roast out of the oven and tent it with foil. Don't wrap it tight we don't want to steam the outside of the roast.We want to let it rest at least 20 to 30 minutes.

Now we have a roast that will be evenly cooked rare to medium rare. The surface of the roast will have desiccated (dried enough) which will allow it to quickly develop a nice seared crust.

Crank the oven to 500 degrees. We want to sear the outside of the roast for that perfect brown crust. Put the roast in the oven 7 or 8 minutes. We want to sear the outside, not cook the roast more.

This will give you a restaurant quality cooked rib roast. Perfectly even pink and tender roast with a wonderful crust. Cooked by this method you will not over cook the cap muscle on the rib roast. That cap or deckle steak is the best piece of meat on the beef. Don't turn it gray, ruin it, by over cooking in a high temperature to start oven.

Last edited by Slowpokebill; 12/22/17 10:46 PM.