I'm planning on bringing a smoked bone-in prime rib to an office party, with about an hour drive.

Normally I'd just let it rest for 30-40 minutes on the counter. Since there's no oven or grill at the office, this needs to travel I'm thinking I'd pull it off when the temp hits 130(shooting for medium rare to medium at most), wrap it in butcher paper and place it in a cooler with some towels.

2 questions here:
1) The roast is a little over 11 pounds - I'm thinking this would take 6+ hours at 250 degrees to hit 130, is that a fair estimate?

2) Am I going to over cook it if I pull it at 130 and hold in a cooler for an hour?

I did two 7lb standing rib roasts at the same time the week before Thanksgiving. I kept the grill between 250 and 275 at the grate and pulled both at 120. I put them on a pan, covered them in aluminum foil shiny side facing the roasts, covered that with a pair of dish towels, and they hit 140 in 45 minutes.

First, 130 is medium rare, so you'll want to pull yours before it hits 130 to allow the temp to rise to the final temp. Based on what happened to mine with just aluminum foil and towels, I wouldn't use a cooler.

If you pulled them at 110-115, maybe a cooler would be OK? But I don't know.

Based on a lot of experience holding brisket and butts in cooler, I too would recommend foil pan and covering. Take the cooler, so when you show up and they are still 30 minutes away from eating you can toss in then, to hopefully hold but not cook any more.

You know they won't be ready.

It will have some carryover cooking as it sits especially wrapped in a cooler so you should keep that in mind.

I think 11 hours is a bit long. I do brisket at 275 and I’m usually at 160 internal after about 6 hours.

When cooking at 250 I don’t get a lot of carryover heat. I think you’d be safe pulling at 125.

^^^Reading on your phone? Your eyes must be as bad as mine, cause I read things wrong a lot.

The roast is 11lbs and he plans to cook it 6 hours.

Thanks for the replies.

Yes 11 pounds for 6 hours. I'm starting to think that might be a bit on the long side too.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
... and they hit 140 in 45 minutes.

Dang - that's a 20 degree rise, that's twice more than I would have expected.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
You know they won't be ready

Yeah, that could be true.


I've successfully held brisket in a cooler for 4+ hours, but that was brisket and had been on for 18 hours or so...

I want to make sure that the roast is still warm when I serve after an hour drive (supposed to be in the 40's on Friday).

I still have some figuring to do...

quote:

2 questions here:
1) The roast is a little over 11 pounds - I'm thinking this would take 6+ hours at 250 degrees to hit 130, is that a fair estimate?

2) Am I going to over cook it if I pull it at 130 and hold in a cooler for an hour?

1. I've done quite a few bone-in rib roasts on different cookers. None have taken aware near 6 hours. I cook mine in the 250 - 275 range. I did a giant 7 bone last Christmas and it took just under 3 hours. I used 2 probes and pulled it when the lowest reading probe reached 127 - 130. Tented with foil on the counter for 20 minutes then sliced and served.

2. Hard to say, but if it was me I would pull it at no more than 125. Use a pan and seal with foil. I don't think some insulation would hurt so I would put a towel under it, and one over it for the hour long ride.









Good luck!

quote:

Originally posted by ShouldBFishin:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
... and they hit 140 in 45 minutes.

Dang - that's a 20 degree rise, that's twice more than I would have expected.

I was shocked. My wife’s potatoes weren’t going to be done for 40 minutes, so I put a couple towels over the aluminum foil figuring it would stay warm longer. In hindsight, I should not have covered them with the towels until they had cooled for maybe 20-25 minutes.

This is the one we made sandwiches out of the next day:



The cap should have been more pink. This was the better of the two. The one we ate first wasn’t as pink.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
^^^Reading on your phone? Your eyes must be as bad as mine, cause I read things wrong a lot.

The roast is 11lbs and he plans to cook it 6 hours.

Good catch. I actually just typed wrong. I think 6 hours may be too long since I get a brisket way past 130 in that amount of time.

I cooked my last 9+ lb. Christmas prime rib at 250 for about 4.5 hours. It was too big for our cooler. We had a 30 min drive to party location. I left the roast in roasting pan put thick cardboard on floor of minivan to prevent carpet damage. Covered roast loosely with foil, and wrapped pan with roast in large blanket/quilt for trip. I had advantage of using local oven to add the last 10-15 min of 500 high-heat for crust.
When I've needed a warm cooler, I've used foil wrapped bricks warmed in oven, and placed in cooler to warm it before adding hot foods.

Here's the follow up ...

I've been using a Meater + for awhile and found the last cook history for a prime rib of a similar size and that one took less time than I expected.

This one I smoked at 230F and pulled it 2 hours and 40 minutes when it hit 125F. Wrapped in in butcher paper and placed in a cooler for the trip to the office.

Since I was concerned that the temp would rise I kept the Meater in and the app up on my phone so I could monitor the temp fully expecting to pull over and open the cooler. I was surprised that it maxed out at 128F.

90 minutes after pulling it was served, still warm and I have to say I think it turned out pretty dang good

Shared pics over in The BBQ Thread.