Expert: John Langenfelder - 4/27/2008

Question
Hi John:
 I have been searching for a recipe for a steamship round and the time for cooking one around 60 lbs. varies from 4 to 24 hours. I would think that the 24 hours would be tender but well done. So can you cook it for a long time and still get a med rare cut?
 I'm cooking it in a pig type rotisserie bbq, but can do it in a indirect method if that's better.
 Please help me. I am so confused!
Thanks
Dale

Answer
Hi Dale,

60 lbs seems very heavy for a steamship round.  Are you sure of the weight?  For that size on a rotisserie, depending on the temp, I would think about 6-8 hours would do it. Depends on how thick the round is. Keep in mind that in this case the weight doesn't have as much to do with the cooking time as the thickness does.  In this case figure about 45 minutes per inch. You'll have the outer edges medium well, and the inside medium rare to rare. If you are slicing and turning, the cut part will cook a little as you slice from the uncut side.  Keep rotating every 15-20 minutes.  When I was doing bull roasts on 3 1/2 ft tall pits, we would start them about 4 hours ahead of time, but were only using about 30 lb bottom rounds and 15 lb top rounds.  The bottom rounds would be about 2 ft from the charcoal (heat) and we would be turning them by hand every 15-20 minutes. When we started serving, we would get some medium to medium well but after a few inches, we would start getting medium to medium rare. Out temp at that distance was probably 350 degrees. We would just keep using different pieces (we would have several on rods) and then we would rotate.

It depends on your definition of long time and what the temperature is.  Rounds are already fairly tender.  I wouldn't be thinking of doing the low and slow thing with rounds.  They'll dry out as they don't have a lot of fat.