Page 29 - Barbecue News June 2020 Issue

Either way, the goal is the same: a dark brown crust and a tender, juicy, medium-rare interior that's evenly cooked from bumper to bumper. Trust me: medium-rare (130 to 135°F) is best for beef, lamb, and venison steaks and chops. Plenty of tasting panels and measuring devices agree that medium- rare gives you the best balance of ten- derness and juiciness.
For skinny steaks (1 inch thick or less), the secret is to use very high heat and keep the steaks moving. You want the surface to get scorching hot, so it will brown quickly without transferring heat to the center. When you cook hot and fast with the grill lid open, and flip the steak often, the heat works mostly on the surface of the underside and doesn’t have time to migrate deep into the meat. As you flip, the heat bleeds off into the air and doesn’t overcook the meat.
For Thick Steaks, Use The Reverse-Sear
Sadly, many home grilled thick steaks (1 1/2 inch thick or more) are only medium-rare in a small band in the center because the rest of the interior overcooks while we are browning the exterior over high heat. In the photo above, the top steak was cooked over high heat and you end up with a thick band of battleship gray meat just under the crust.
The solution is to use two cooking temperatures, one for the inte- rior and one for the exterior. That’s the core concept in the re- verse sear. It's the best method of getting edge-to-edge even doneness on a thick steak. Start by setting up your grill for two- zone cooking with a hot, direct-heat side and a cooler, indirect heat side with not coals or flame. Try to get the indirect zone as close to 225°F as you can with the lid on. Put the steak on the in- direct side, toss a little hardwood on the fire on the other side for smoke, and then close the lid so the meat will roast slowly in smoky convection air. You shouldn’t need to flip it. When the in- terior temperature is about 15°F below your target temperature take it off and put it on a plate for a moment. The interior is al- most done. Now it’s time to work on the exterior. Crank up the heat on the direct-heat side as hot as you can get it. If you have a charcoal grill with a height-adjustable coal bed, get the coals right below the cooking surface. You may want to dump more hot coals on the direct side of the grill. Or set up a hibachi with a thick bed of hot coals. For a gas grill, turn the burners to high, or better yet, turn on your sear burner if your grill has one. On a pellet smoker, crank it to high and preheat a griddle or pan on the grates.
Pat one side of the steak dry with a paper towel so when you put it on the grill, evaporating water doesn’t cool the surface and steam the meat. Put the steak dry side down on the hot side of the grill and leave the lid open. You don’t want any heat reflecting off the lid down onto the top of the steak, roasting the interior. You want to pound the underside with energy. But don’t leave it there for long, or the heat will start to work its way to the middle. Flip it and let the surface cool. Keep flipping until the crust turns deep, dark, bourbon brown, but not black. You do not want carbonized
protein or fat. You want to take the in- terior to about 130 to 135°F (medium- rare) and the exterior just shy of burnt, because when you do, dazzling things happen: You have the perfect steak. Like this:
What about grill marks? Don't bother. Brown is flavor caused by a chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction, and you get the most flavor when the entire surface is mahogany brown, not just a few stripes.
Don't Bother Resting Steaks Either
Many "experts" tell you that steaks must be rested after cooking. The the- ory is that if you cut into it too soon, all the precious juices will drain away. Nonsense. Steaks aren't balloons filled with water. To prove it, the Amazin- gRibs.com science advisor, Professor Greg Blonder, cooked two 13 1/2-ounce
ribeye steaks to 125°F. He cut one into strips immediately, rested the other for 30 minutes, and then cut it into strips. He collected the juices from the steaks and measured them. The steak that had not rested expelled about 6 teaspoons. The steak that had rested gave up 5 teaspoons. Not much of a difference. Also, the meat temperature on the rested steak rose to 145°F from carryover cooking, well past medium-rare to medium-well. Naturally, the careful scientist repeated the experiment several times with the same results. Keep in mind, when we eat a steak, most of us cut into it one piece at a time; we don’t slice it into strips. And when we do slice, we don't lose all the juices. We mop them up with the meat. My advice: serve your steak while it's hot. It will "rest" as you eat it.
Meathead is the barbecue whisperer who founded AmazingRibs.com, by far the world's most popular outdoor cooking website. He is the author of "Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling," a New York Times Best Seller that was also named one of the "100 Best Cookbooks of All Time" by Southern Living magazine. This article was excerpted and modified from his book. More on his book here: https://amazingribs.com/book. For 3,000+ free pages of great barbe- cue and grilling info, visit AmazingRibs.com and take a free 30 day trial membership in the Pitmaster Club.
JUNE 2020
BarbecueNews.com - 29