Making Roast Beef

True domesticated bovine cows are either beef or dairy type female breeding stock.  After being culled from the herd the carcasses resulting from such animals are utilized primarily in the production of ground beef products.  The whole muscle most often gleaned from culled beef breeding cow carcasses is the inside/top round; which is widely further processed into deli slicer roast beef.  Knowing this, I recently thought it to be somewhat ironic when witnessing combo truck loads of corn-fed, young market animal bottom and sirloin tip rounds being used as 85% lean beef trim in pre-cooked burger plants.  USDA Select, Choice or Prime top/inside rounds are often merchandized as fresh London Broils.  But, not all meat cuts labeled as London Broils are cut from top rounds.  Retail grade rounds marbling degrees are low compared to muscles in the more anterior regions of any given beef carcass.  And, Commercial grade cow rounds usually display even lower marbling degrees than rounds from young grain fattened cattle.  I believe the combination of cheaper starting raw product price and less internal fat flecking are the main reasons cull cow rounds are commonly used for the meat plant production of deli roast beef slicers.  However as mentioned, a fairly strong market for fresh retail London Broils cut from inside rounds is a supply and demand factor.  Chunked and formed fast-food style roast beef originates from Commercial grade cow rounds; in that case chunks of closely trimmed lean beef are bound together after extracted salt-soluble raw muscle proteins coagulate during cooking.  In all cases, the hind leg of beef tends to be a comparatively dry and tough carcass region.  Thus dictating the need for moisture enhancing food additives and for the thin slicing of finished product in order to create the illusion of meat tenderness.

Recently one of my married daughters came to me complaining about the $12.49 per pound price of deli sliced roast beef, and that her husband would quickly gobble up as much of it as she bought.   To her credit, she asked me about the feasibility of using USDA Choice eye of round for home roast beef production!  These are the types of real life meat questions that prompted me to start my blog site.  Since I have chronically lacked questions and non-spam feedback on nearly all my previous posts, I had pretty well lost interest in working up any new educational material.   I happily told my daughter that we could easily make a good roast beef at a fraction of the cost of what she is now paying.  But, with using only one (sodium phosphate) common commercial food additive our end-product was not likely to be as flavorful.  MSG and its cousin Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein are often used commercially as flavor potentiaters.  There are other additives for things like texture and shelf-life extension.

On the plus side: the eye of round is one solid piece of muscle with a comparatively thin layer of fat on only one side of it and their average weight is in the 5 to 7 pound range.  To the untrained eye,  eye of round can resemble beef tenderloin.  Unfortunately, eye of round is all too easy to cook dry & tough, plus it lacks enough collagen content to compare favorably with chuck cuts when braised or otherwise cooked using low-heat moist techniques.

The relatively plump eye of round pictured here weighed just over 7 pounds.  The ingredients listed below are for around a whole untrimmed 5 pound eye.  I simply add a little more of non-meat ingredients for heavier roasts.

 

Ingredients:

5 to 6 pound crovaced Choice eye of round.

2 tsp. Amesphos

1 Tbsp. garlic salt

1/4 cup bourbon

2 3/4 cups water

Coarse ground black pepper to sprinkle on exposed lean

 

First dissolve the sodium phosphate in water because it can become hard to dissolve in the presence of salt.  If you need some convincing about using sodium Phosphate (click here).  If you want to know where to find a good sodium phosphate for roasts (click here).

Next dissolve the garlic salt then add bourbon.  Wine can be substituted for bourbon if you have sweeter tastes.

Using the 10 hole needle on a 4 ounce brine injector, pump small amounts of brine into as many different location on the roast that you can.  The needle end is blunt so don’t try pushing it through subcutaneous fat or the exterior muscle sheath.  Tip: before assembling hand brine pump, run hot water on plunger O-ring to assure a good seal for the drawing in and pushing out of our roast beef mixture.

If you want to know where to find this type of injector (click here).  After the page opens scroll down to the “You may also like” section to find the 4 once commercial meat injector with 2 needles for $20.

To avoid sucking air into hand operated pump, draw in brine out of tall narrow glasses.  Dump purged brine back out of roasting pan one time to be re-pumped.  Start using the tall shot glass after the brine supply runs low.  Dump the last partially full shot glass of brine over roast.

Fully pumped roast sitting fat-side-down on a rack in a roasting pan.  Fat-side-up does not do much to gravity baste cooking roasts because the muscle sheath under the fat seals it from doing so.  Conversely, when the muscle sheath under the subcutaneous fat is turned down it acts as a partial cup to help retain purge within a cooking roast.

Coarse ground black pepper sprinkled  over exposed lean just prior to roast going into oven.  There is no need to apply pepper to the heavy fat side of roast.

 

Place uncovered roaster in pre-heated oven at 325F and check the cold-spot temperature of roast after 2 hours.  Different types of conventional ovens (gas or electric), your region’s altitude and plumpness of individual roasts can affect cook times.  If roast is not up to the desired temperature after 2 hours put it back in the oven for about 20 minutes prior to checking it again.  Try hard to pull roast from heat at just under 130F.

This roast’s center hit 137F about 40 minutes after being pulled from the oven at 130F.

Leave the just cooked roast sit out at room temperature for about an hour then begin chilling it rapidly.  It’s good practice to stick the just cooked roast in a freezer for about 40 minutes, but if you do don’t forget it’s in there.  Wrap roast 2 or 3 hours after cooking.  Chill roast at refrigerator temperature overnight until the center reaches 40F.

Peel/trim most fat from cooked roast exterior using a long wave-edge knife.  Use the same knife to hand slice roast as thin as practical.  This product will last longer in excellent condition if not sliced all at one time i.e. cut it as needed.

With the fat still on it, this particular roast had an 89% cooking yield.  3 cups of liquid, low level salt (swells raw muscle protein) and sodium phosphate all helped to keep the yield up and the end-product juicy.

Starting raw meat was $2.57 per pound.  Cooked roast came in right around $3.40 per pound.  Palatability characteristics were well above average.  Depending upon your particular situation, this non-labor intensive product may be well worthwhile making.