Catering for a group of people is a completely different task than cooking a meal for the family. Your whole line of thinking has to change. If your grill is big enough, there is no reason not to take on the challenge. Depending on the cooking time and the occasion will predicate the choice of your meat cut.
In this case it was Choice Beef Ribeye that was aged 21 days. Do you want to know more about aging? Read How to age beef
Smoking Choice Beef Ribeye
If your cooking big volumes, time and temperature are of the essence. So the first task is to weigh the meat. You can’t do this without a reliable thermometer.
Your Meat Rub
Coat your meat with a good quality olive oil and rub the spice mixture of your choice into the meat. Make sure you really massage it in. In this case we used a mixture of salt, pepper and chili powder.
Smoking Your Ribeye
We have smoked the meat 12 minutes for every pound with a goal temperature of 132 degrees Fahrenheit for medium rare. Make sure you know your preparation time and smoking time way ahead. Nobody likes to keep the guest waiting because he miscalculated the cooking and smoking times.
Resting Your Ribeye
Like all meat, resting is a way to improve juiciness and texture. As the meat cooks, the temperature within the muscle tissue causes an imbalance in the distribution of juices within. Slicing a hot roast open directly out of the oven will result in juices spilling out all over the cutting board from areas in which the juice concentrations are too high. Properly rested meat will retain all this juice as its sliced.
We let our Choice Beef Ribeye rest for one hour.
I advise to aim for your meat to be medium. If you are cooking for big groups you can’t ask every individual how they want their meat. Aiming for the middle road will keep all the quests happy. We sliced and seared the steaks on both sides and served them at a perfect medium (at 140 degrees Fahrenheid).
TIP
Always use the best ingredients. The most common mistake is to spend a lot of money on the perfect Ribeye and to try and save on your oil. Use a good quality coldpressed olive oil in your kithen and you will never regret it.
Buy bigger quantities and pay a better price.
