Why is my roast beef always tough? (2024)

Dr. Susan,

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Welcome to eG!

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Yup, can sympathize on problems cooking beef.

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I would offer five pieces of advice:

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(1) <b>Oven Temperature.</b> You very much do want to know the

temperature inside your oven. Generally cannot trust the

temperature indications on the dial on an oven temperature

control. So, to know the real actual temperature, you need to

measure the temperature, with a thermometer, inside the oven.

Since a thermometer might fail, you should have and use more

than one. If you use, say, three thermometers inside the oven

and all three agree, then you know the temperature inside your

oven. This is just what I do.

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So, I would suggest that you buy some inexpensive oven

thermometers, that is, thermometers intended to be placed

inside the oven on an oven rack. In my oven, the thermometers

are all inexpensive, not electronic, bought from a shrink

wrapped card hanging on a hook in a gadget section of a

grocery store. So far, all three of these thermometers always

read the same. Once my oven is at a steady cooking

temperature, usually the dial on my oven thermostat reads 75 F

lower than the thermometers inside my oven. To keep these

thermometers from falling through the slots in the oven rack,

I have them resting on a folded sheet of aluminum foil.

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(2) <b>Meat Internal Temperature.</b> Still more important than oven

temperature, whenever cooking a 'roast' or other large piece

of meat, you very much need to know the temperature inside the

meat. This temperature is by far the most important single

piece of information for getting good results in roasting.

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A thermometer designed to measure temperature inside a piece

of meat is commonly called a "meat thermometer". I have

several and would suggest that you do also.

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Likely my best meat thermometer I got some decades ago. It is

from Taylor and is glass with a red liquid inside and a

stainless steel scale attached to the outside. This

thermometer can be left stuck in the meat while the meat cooks

inside the oven.

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To clean this thermometer, I let it stand and soak in a glass

of soapy water. A day later, I clean with a soft brush,

rinse, dry, wrap in a protective towel, secure the towel with

a twist tie, and store in a gadget drawer. This thermometer

has worked beautifully for decades, for chickens, turkeys,

pork shoulders, eye of round roasts, beef rib roasts, etc.

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Since this glass thermometer indicates new temperatures

slowly, I also have some meat thermometers that indicate new

temperatures quickly. These, however, cannot be left in a hot

oven.

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My standard such 'rapid reading' thermometer says 'ACU RITE'

on the dial. There is a shaft about 5 inches long with

diameter smaller than a pencil, larger than a lead in a

pencil, and about the same as a soda straw. One end of the

shaft is pointed, for inserting into meat. The other end has

a dial and scale in a metal housing about the size and

thickness of two 50 cent pieces stacked.

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So, when I'm warming soup, I give it a stir to make the

temperature uniform, use this thermometer to measure the

temperature, and regard the soup as hot enough and safe enough

at 170 F.

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To clean this thermometer, I just clean the shaft. I try not

to let the end with the dial get wet.

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This thermometer was inexpensive, likely also bought from a

shrink wrapped card, and is not electronic.

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I also have another model which has a digital display but

needs a small battery.

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Typically a meat thermometer is easy to insert into the meat

except possibly for the surface of the meat. So, to let the

thermometer easily puncture the surface, cut a slit. To get

an accurate reading of the temperature of the meat, usual

advice is to avoid having the thermometer contact a bone.

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For my fake version of Memphis pork BBQ, I cook fresh 'picnic'

pork shoulder to an internal temperature of 180 F.

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(3) <b>Beef Round Roast.</b> Beef round is not easy to work with.

This meat is basically the main muscle that on a human would

be the back of the thigh. This is likely the largest and one

of the hardest working muscles on a cow. So, this muscle is

high in collagen and low in fat. More fat could help make the

meat tender and juicy. For the collagen, have to 'melt' that

or it will leave the meat tough. The standard way to melt

collagen is to cook slowly. Once such a piece of meat is

cooked, slicing thinly across the grain can help make the

result much more tender.

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With beef round, I've had some successes but some failures.

The failures were close to what you reported -- hard, dry,

brittle and not tender, juicy, or 'succulent'. The failures

were all from trying to make beef stew from chunks of beef

bottom round roast, a topic I would leave for the second

semester of Beef 101.

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The easiest way I was successful with beef round was to buy

eye of round roast, the whole thing. Some old notes from a

typical trial have eye of round roast raw weight 6.28 pounds,

roasted in shallow open roasting pan in a Brown-n-Bag (brand

name of a plastic bag intended for oven roasting) at 325 F for

2 hours and 23 minutes to internal temperature of 168 F, final

weight 63.5 ounces, loss 26.9%. My notes say that I liked the

doneness from the 168 F internal temperature. When the roast

cooled, I sliced it thinly for roast beef sandwiches. They

were good sandwiches; the meat was plenty tender, moist, and

flavorful. I stacked the thin slices of meat on rye bread,

added some brown mustard, wrapped, and carried to work for

lunch.

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Corned eye of round is sometimes available in grocery stores;

I've had good results with that also.

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For roasting a whole beef bottom round roast, there is a Julia

and Jacques TV episode where Julia made beef stew of chuck

roast and Jacques roasted a whole beef bottom round roast.

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Good ways to handle top round include Sauerbraten and Swiss

Steak. Some special steps in preparation are needed, but the

results can be terrific.

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(4) <b>Beef Rib Roast.</b> For rib roast, here are some notes from a

successful effort: We bought a rib roast with three ribs,

including the "first rib", with the rib bones attached (not

cut away), and raw weight 8.11 pounds. We placed the roast in

a shallow stainless steel roasting pan covered with aluminum

foil; the orientation of the roast was fat side up; we placed

the glass meat thermometer in essentially the center of the

meat; we roasted (uncovered, no water added) at 325 F; after 3

hours 45 minutes, meat internal temperature was 150 F; after 4

hours 15 minutes, 161 F; after 4 hours 39 minutes, 171 F; we

kept the roast in a warm oven with meat internal temperature

between 165 F and 171 F for another 1 hour 20 minutes before

carving and then carved and served. It was good.

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(5) <b>Chuck Pot Roast.</b> If I had to cook a beef dish for a beef

lover right away, terrific and nearly fool proof, then I would

do a pot roast with a round bone chuck roast. Such a pot

roast was the first roast I ever tried to cook, and my track

record is, no matter what I did, the results were good!

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So, put the roast in a roasting pot, add water-based liquid to

a depth of about half that of the meat, cover the pot, place

in an oven at about 325 F, declare the roasting done when the

bone is loose, the meat is nearly falling apart, the meat

internal temperature is, I'm guessing, 180 F, the kitchen and

the whole house smell good, and everyone in the house has to

be forcibly constrained not to open the oven and dig in!

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For my first effort, for the liquid, I used a can of

Campbell's Condensed Mushroom Soup, straight from the can, no

water added. I just put the soup on top of the roast, likely

with some salt and pepper, covered, roasted, and ate. It was

good.

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During the roasting, juices from the meat form some terrific

gravy. Since this liquid will include a lot of melted fat,

may want to pour liquid into a container and spoon off the

excess fat.

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Standard additional advice includes: (1) At the beginning, in

the roasting pot, brown the meat in oil. Then the "browned

bits" can help the flavor of the final gravy. (2) Some people

dust the roast with flour before browning. This flour can

also brown and can serve to thicken the gravy. Here, however,

it is easy to get TOO MUCH flour which can cause problems for

the dish. So, I suggest avoiding this flour. If at the end,

want a 'sauce', then pour off the liquid, strain it, spoon off

the fat, make a roux of flour and butter, and use the roux to

thicken the liquid. (3) For the liquid included (say, to a

depth half way up the side of the meat) at beginning of the

roasting, can use beef stock and dry red wine. Might toss in

some garlic, tomato paste, and herbs. For the herbs, the

usual suspects are thyme, bay leaf, and parsley. Nearly any

reasonable proportions will give a good result. (4) About half

way through the roasting, can toss in some chunks of carrot

and celery and some white boiler onions. Near the end of the

roasting, toss in some chunks of potato. Then, will have some

carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes to serve with the roast.

Again, nearly any reasonable proportions will give a good

result. So, put the roast on a serving platter, arrange the

vegetables around, pour over some of the sauce, and pass the

rest of the sauce in a bowl.

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There is a lot of fat in chuck roast. During the cooking, a

lot -- likely nearly all -- of the fat melts into the liquid.

This melted fat is easy to separate. With such separation,

the resulting meat as eaten can be reasonably low in fat.

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Any meat left over used as beef hash can be too good for

mortal morals!