Rotisserie Ribeye Roast: What's on the Grill #292

When it comes to the holidays or special occasions, there is nothing more I love to grill than a ribeye roast. Now under ideal circumstances, the meat would be prime grade and the bones would be intact. Read: Prime Rib.

However, for our Christmas themed Wo-ManNight last weekend, I waited a little too long to find something that big. Instead, I opted for a 10 pound select grade ribeye roast without bones. Knowing this mass of beef was going for a spin, the loss of bones and grade didn’t bother me a bit. Several hours on a rotisserie can work magic on any cut of meat. I know first hand. I watched this roast get devoured.

I was talking to Dad about this meal the other night, and he asked what recipe I used. You see, Dad is a man who likes a plan, and he prefers it written out. I told him I didn’t really have one as the cook process is always the same and the seasonings can be about anything. Well, anything within reason.

As I relayed to him, I’m going to follow the same approach here. I know cooking a huge piece of meat like this can be daunting, but it’s not. In fact, if you cook to temperature with a trusty instant read thermometer, it is dead easy. Even easier than grilling a steak.

The Meat

The roast came cryo-packed, so it was pretty rough. If the meat is not butchered and trimmed, prepare to do a little extra work. In my opinion, a little knife wielding is worth the cost savings.

Remove any extra pieces of fat or silverskin, but don’t try to get everything. While some fat will render, it’s not like cooking a pork shoulder for 12 hours. Just get rid of the big pieces.

The Seasoning

As I mentioned before, anything goes. While a good covering of salt and pepper will work on its own, I want a more interesting crust. One of my favorites is a mixture of rosemary and garlic.

Dice a handful of rosemary leaves and 4 or 5 cloves of garlic. Mix them together in a small bowl.

Add in a couple tablespoons of olive oil and mix together.

Season the roast with copious amounts of salt and pepper, and then smear on the rosemary garlic mixture.

My roast was a little “floppy", and since I planned on making it dizzy for the next couple hours, I decided to truss it. Besides the security of stopping a piece of meat flying off, trussing promotes even cooking, but more importantly keeps the meat from flying off. I don’t want to lose any.

Insert the rotisserie rod so the meat’s weight is about equally distributed as possible. With an oblong cut, this can be a little tricky, and I never get it “just right.”  Add the tines.

With butcher twine, loop one end of the roast and tie a knot. Work the long piece of twine up the roast by making a half hitch every couple inches. Once at the other end, tie the twine off on itself. Keep the twine tight the entire time.

The Grill

There are two schools of thought for the cook: to sear, or not to sear. Luckily, on Weber’s Summits there is a third option, infrared (IR) sear. I like the sear, and since I did not want to fire up a second grill to make it happen, I opted for the IR rotisserie burner. It is a great tool.

The goal is to provide high heat to each side of meat for several minutes. We want a well marked “crust.” This could be achieved with a grill, cast iron skillet, or even, yes, a blowtorch.

Pre-heat the grill with all burners on high, then drop all of the burners off, except for the extreme left and right. Those are left on medium. Mount the spit, turn on the rotisserie, and then fire up the IR burner. With the burner lit and the meat spinning, let it go or about 15-20 minutes. Shut it off once the meat is well marked and brown.

At this point, continue the cook.

The goal is to cook the meat until it is medium rare, which means removing it from the grill at 130 F, and then allowing it to rest. For ballpark time, figure about 110-5 minutes a pound, but error towards 10. For a 10 pound roast, figure about 3 and half hours, but start getting your act together at 2 hours and 45 minutes.

I would rather shoot low, then shoot high and kill the roast, so start to check the internal temperature the last 45 minutes.

Once at 130 F, remove from the grill and allow to rest. The meat will slowly rise several degrees to the desired 135 F.

Once it does, carve and serve.

While it may be tempting to pick up a precooked spiral cut ham of your next big to-do, I highly suggest grilling a huge roast. It is simple, straightforward, and guarantee to please a crowd, even when the host is dressed like an elf.