I’ve been cooking prime rib for Christmas dinner off and on for the past 10 years, since starting in 2011, and this year was our best ever! It was also my first year to SMOKE our prime rib outside on my RecTeq RT-700 Bull Grill.

I primarily followed the Hey Grill Hey recipe and video for “Garlic Butter Smoked Prime Rib.” I also watched and borrowed some techniques from Matt’s Meat Church video, “Smoked Prime Rib.”

Here’s a video I made of today’s cook, which runs just over 8 minutes long:

My preparation steps were:

1. Let 4 sticks of butter sit out to soften overnight
2. Took the prime rib out of the fridge 3 hours before I planned to start my cook (at 9am)
3. Put some Worcestershire sauce on as a binder, before seasoning the roast on all sides with Rodelle Gourmet Prime Rib Seasoning (I bought some at Costco a few months ago)
4. Mixed the softened butter with fresh, chopped sage, a tablespoon or so of crushed rosemary, 8 chopped garlic cloves, and 4 more spoonfuls of the Rodelle seasoning
5. Slathered the entire rib roast with the butter goodness / mixture

I cooked the 8 pound prime rib for five hours at 225 degrees on the smoker, but should have checked the internal temperature earlier. I was wanting to cook it to 120 degrees, but ended up letting it get up to 130 degrees.

I removed the rib roast at that point from the grill, covered it in foil, and turned my smoker temperature up to 400 degrees. After about 15 minutes it had heated up to 400, so I put the roast back on the grill for 10 more minutes. That was enough to bring the internal temperature up to 135 degrees, which is exactly where I wanted it for medium rare prime rib.

As Susie Bulloch shared in her Hey Grill Hey prime rib video, the RIBS which can be cut off the roast before slicing are absolutely AMAZING to eat!

Overall, this turned out to be a fantastic cook and amazing meal. We paired the prime rib with cranberry sauce, sautéed brussels sprouts, baked potatoes, and dinner rolls. An amazing Christmas dinner to remember for sure.