Prim Rib Refrigeration and cooking

If the label says use by Dec 22nd then that's what I would do.  I never buy meat until the day of or the day before a holiday party.  Luckily for me I make it a point to never buy expensive top sellers like prime rib, I always serve cheap meat (beautifully cooked) like lamb shoulder for holidays so the butchers never run out of them. 

I am extremely sensitive to sell-by dates.  I throw things out by these dates and I never eat meat that's been sitting in a fridge for more than a few days.  Considering that prime rib is usually served a little bit undercooked, food safety should be respected.  Let's put it this way, I wouldn't be too happy sitting down at your Christmas dinner :(

I understand that people want to stock up on their groceries so that they don't have to deal with large crowds and slim pickings the day before a holiday.  Maybe the best way to deal with this in the future is to get to know your butcher and put an order in well ahead of time.  If you tell your butcher you want a rib roast of x amount of pounds on hold, all you have to do is go pick it up without worries that they've sold out.

I do not know how your prime rib was packaged but in the restaurant world wrapped ribeyes can stay in a cooler for weeks without any problem. Even if your roast was simply wrapped it would last from Sunday to Sunday very easily. Trust the butcher.

The date on the package means the last day it is to be offered for retail sale and thats all. If it is cryovac package it can stay a long time . A trick to determine how old it is without it being dated is to see how much blood in the bag (same goes for chicken) the more blood or liquid the older it is. Try and avoid these packeges as it is the blood that goes bad first not the product and if product sits in blood long enough it will go bad .

    That is why all meat and chickens should be rinsed first before cooking, and chicken removed from store packaging when you get it home.(Notice all process chickens are packed with a blotter patch to absorb the blood and juice and to not have it in contact with the bird) 

      A fresh butcher peach paper wrapped  rib will hold at least a week at 38 to 40 degrees . Naturally the colder the better. There are many old wives tale myths re food dating and processing. I know people who throw out qts of milk because they are todays date. This is crazy. Smell and taste everything before discarding.

The butcher has told you the truth as Chef Ross says "Trust the butcher"

Great advice from Both Chef Ross and Chef ed, I used to buy all my Prime Rib in the beginning of Dec and serve it all month. The process is called "Wet Aging", this is how most meat is aged, very few do a dry age process. The meat packing companies process over a 1000 cows a day, no hang time, no nothing, the meat is cut,  put in cryovac, boxed and shipped or off to the refer or freezers, depending on the cuts. The Prime rib will have some wet aging already because of the time it leaves the Processor, to the seller to the butcher or Restaurant.

   I would say, if they just wrapped the prime rib in a loose butcher wrap and it's sitting in blood, that's not a good thing. If the Prime rib is dry, wrapped well then it will be fine. ................Have fun, hope your meal goes well..................ChefBillyB

You'll be fine.  The store computer generates the "sell by" date, and bases the calculation solely on the day the meat is cut and put in the tray.  The date bot assumes the market is selling ground meat or meat which is cut very thinly -- both of which spoil quickly.  5 - 10 days  with a standing rib?  No problem. 

BDL

Is it really prime rib?

Is it choice rib?

Is it select rib?

Or is it something Sizzler would sell?

mjb the nitpicker.

Teamfat,

The rib is the primal cut.  The whole rib or part of it, cut as a roast, with the ribs in, as long as it's two or more bones wide, is called the "standing rib."  If it's only got one bone, it's referred to as a "steak."  The center six (or sometimes seven) bone width from the rib primal is called the prime rib, and it's a sub-primal.  The use of the word "prime" has nothing to do with the USDA Prime grade.  [Cue Ed's rant.] 

However, the term "prime rib" has become so debased and overused you can't depend that a restaurant or supermarket is actually selling meat cut from the prime rib subprimal, even if they use the term on the menu or label.  Not so much lying, as that the term has simply lost its meaning through the evolution of language.

BDL

Going along with what BDL says. It has nothing to do with USDA gradeing Prime. It has been lost. Also keep in mind that Prime meat is a little fattier then choice or supermarket stuff. The average consumer can't buy Prime as the majority of it is purchased by  upscale restaurants..When I was younger I worked where the inspectors graded meat daily. I had to laugh when they applied their ***grapejuice stamp to the meat. In many cases depending if he had a good night with the wife or girlfriend is how meat was graded. If he was happy meat was prime otherwise choice. Many factores go into proper grading. Like color and thickness of fat, configuration. size of eye on some cuts, marbeling of fat etc.***(the printing on the meat or stamp is made from concentrated grapejuice)

I hope my little smart alec remarks didn't deter the original poster from the task at hand, and the roast was prepared and consumed.

Skavanau, ow did it go?

mjb.