Whole Beef Rib disaster - wrong cook method?

[CowboyScott]

I have done beef bone in short ribs and beef back ribs before using low and slow with great results and it was time to do again. Stopped by Costco and all they had out was boneless beef ribs so I asked if they had any bone in. He said they just got in a bunch of large, bone in beef ribs and brought out several packages of large, whole beef ribs with 2 to 4 full ribs slabs. Of course, I was excited as my biggest complaint when I cooked them before was there was not enough meat on the ribs. These looked like dinosaur bones steaks (should have been my first clue). I bought a slab that had 2 ribs.

Since they were labeled "Whole beef ribs", I thought I would cook them low and slow until they were probe tender. Here is what they looked like after I separated the 2 ribs slab in singles, trimmed off the fat, dry brined, added rub, and initially put on the grill for a long low and slow cook at 225°



Well, I cooked them for ~10 hours at 225°, planning to get them up to 200-203* and probe tender. As you pitmasters can probably guess, the meat further away from bone never got probe tender and it was tough and dry when I pulled it off at ~200°. The meat close to the rib bone was probe tender though!

My question is- how should I have cooked this? I am thinking I should have treated it like a steak and done reverse sear. However, how would the meat close to the rib bone do? Maybe another option would have been to separate the steak part from the rib bone and treat each piece entirely differently.

Looking forward to some sage advice.

[Nuke em]

If I’m not mistaken, those look like prime ribs with bone in

[EdF]

I was having trouble deciding what cut those actually were, but came to the same conclusion - look at the area near the head of the rib - looks like there might be a bit of the spinalis muscle there.

[kmhfive]

Those are bone-in Ribeyes. You were right. Separate the roast from the bone then reverse sear!

[texastweeter]

Nailed it. That's a steak homie.

[HorseDoctor]

CowboyScott "I am thinking I should have treated it like a steak and done reverse sear. "

Yup, treat it like a steak because it is a steak!!! As kmhfive said, those are bone in ribeye steaks! Too bad whoever served you at Costco wasn't better help in getting you what you wanted...

[jgreen]

Tough luck. That Costco guy certainly didn't help. Guess you wound up with a very well done ribeye steak. Hopefully someone in your house likes well done steak. I got two guys in my crowd that think there should be no pink left in the meat. They would have helped you eat that.

[CowboyScott]

Yeah, I also think they were ribeyes and I killed them good. We like our steaks med rare so our dog has been very happy- he seems to love well done ribeye roast!

One last question- if they were ribeyes, I would simply reverse sear them bone in, not separating the steak meat from the bone meat, correct?

[EdF]

That's what I'd do. Sometimes you see them sold as "club steaks".

[texastweeter]

Edf, my old school butcher than handles all our beef after slaughter still calls them club steaks or shell steaks.

[JCGrill]

You certainly could leave the bones in. When it's a prime rib roast many guys separate the bone from the roast and use the bone as a rack for the roast. Nothing wrong with doing the bones themselves exactly as you did (keeping them together though).

[texastweeter]

Have a bunch of those "club steaks" in my freezer right now. I think most people call it a bone in ribeye. Butter, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme.... Or, I like outbacks seasoning, one of my employees is the manager of the local outback, and I buy it by the bag. I like two OTC steak seasonings, Salt Grass 7, and spicy Montreal Steak.