Why Can't I Grill A Decent Steak?

[vailpass]

Grilled steaks last night, they came out ok but not great. Good cuts of meat but they weren't juicy like a restaurant. I only turned them once, used high heat. I like them medium rate.
I have 2 grills, gas and infra red, just can't seem to get the perfect streak.
Anyone have any tips?

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Grilled two cuts tonight. Let them sit out coated in salt for 30 minutes. Rinsed and patted dry. Heat at 500. Quick sear, 4 minutes, then moved to other side of grill.
Best yet.
Thanks everyone.

Next time, try salting a day in advance and let them sit out for an hour before you cook.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Fire Me Boy!

Next time, try salting a day in advance and let them sit out for an hour before you cook.

That's just what I'll do, the quest continues.
Do I salt and let them sit in the fridge for a day?

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by vailpass

That's just what I'll do, the quest continues.
Do I salt and let them sit in the fridge for a day?

Yes, but salt as you normally would. Just season them well with salt on both sides (just salt for now), put 'em in the fridge uncovered on a rack, take 'em out an hour or so before you cook, season with pepper. Don't wash them off, you're not going to use that much salt and the purpose for leaving them uncovered is so they'll develop a nice pellicle.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Fire Me Boy!

Yes, but salt as you normally would. Just season them well with salt on both sides (just salt for now), put 'em in the fridge uncovered on a rack, take 'em out an hour or so before you cook, season with pepper. Don't wash them off, you're not going to use that much salt and the purpose for leaving them uncovered is so they'll develop a nice pellicle.

Thanks! I don't know what pellicle is but I'm pumped for the perfect steak. These last ones were the best ever. The salting and sitting makes an amazing difference.

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Thanks! I don't know what pellicle is but I'm pumped for the perfect steak. These last ones were the best ever. The salting and sitting makes an amazing difference.

Pellicle is a layer of protein that develops when the steak has been left to dry a bit... it helps smoke molecules stick to the meat.

[Fire Me Boy!]

Bump. Vail, can you grill a decent steak yet?

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Fire Me Boy!

Bump. Vail, can you grill a decent steak yet?

Hah yeah, thanks to the advice here I'm up to 'pretty good'. Haven't done much grilling over the last year though I did try a broiler steak in a cast iron skillet and it turned out pretty damn good.

[Ming the Merciless]

Originally Posted by Loneiguana

No. Do not do this.

All restaurant steaks go from cold storage directly to the grill. Why? Because any amount of time where meat is kept at a unsafe temp. is bad. Any time uncooked meat is not kept within in a safe temp. only increases the odds of getting sick. I prefer to not take any chances.

And it doesn't do a thing for the meat. It is better for the meat to go directly from cold storage to the heat.

Letting it sit after cooking is okay and does let juices recollect.

As other people have said, 6 or 7 minutes per inch or so. Don't be afraid to flip twice if you don't think it is done.

If you have the time, try searing both sides, then cooking it slower with indirect heat. Usually produces a juicy steak.

And I'll suggest my favorite steak rub: Jerk. Jerk seasoning on a steak is delicious.

Maybe if the restraunt you go to is Dennys

You absolutely want to let your steak come up a Lil in temp b4 u grill or broil it or cast iron.

Your nonsense about getting sick from a steak being out for a half hour/hour is idiotic

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

Maybe if the restraunt you go to is Dennys

You absolutely want to let your steak come up a Lil in temp b4 u grill or broil it or cast iron.

Your nonsense about getting sick from a steak being out for a half hour/hour is idiotic

I agree with your statement that you're not going to get sick. That's just stupid. But the room temperature thing is pretty worthless:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/t...ing-steak.html

MYTH #1: "YOU SHOULD LET A THICK STEAK REST AT ROOM TEMPERATURE BEFORE YOU COOK IT."

The Theory: You want your meat to cook evenly from edge to center. Therefore, the closer it is to its final eating temperature, the more evenly it will cook. Letting it sit on the counter for 20 to 30 minutes will bring the steak up to room temperature—a good 20 to 25°F closer to your final serving temperature. In addition, the warmer meat will brown better because you don't need to waste energy from the pan to take the chill off of its surface.

The Reality: Let's break this down one issue at a time. First, the internal temperature. While it's true that slowly bringing a steak up to its final serving temperature will promote more even cooking, the reality is that letting it rest at room temperature accomplishes almost nothing.

To test this, I pulled a single 15-ounce New York strip steak out of the refrigerator, cut it in half, placed half back in the fridge, and the other half on a ceramic plate on the counter. The steak started at 38°F and the ambient air in my kitchen was at 70°F. I then took temperature readings of its core every ten minutes.

After the first 20 minutes—the time that many chefs and books will recommend you let a steak rest at room temperature—the center of the steak had risen to a whopping 39.8°F. Not even a full two degrees. So I let it go longer. 30 minutes. 50 minutes. 1 hour and 20 minutes. After 1 hour and 50 minutes, the steak was up to 49.6°F in the center. Still colder than the cold water comes out of my tap in the summer, and only about 13% closer to its target temperature of a medium-rare 130°F than the steak in the fridge.

You can increase the rate at which it warms by placing it on a highly conductive metal, like aluminum,* but even so, it'd take you at least an hour or so to get up to room temperature—an hour that would be better spent by, say, actively warming your steak sous-vide style in a beer cooler.

*protip: thaw frozen meat in an aluminum skillet to cut your thaw time in half!

After two hours, I decided I'd reached the limit of what is practical, and had gone far beyond what any book or chef recommends, so I cooked the two steaks side by side. For the sake of this test, I cooked them directly over hot coals until seared, then shifted them over to the cool side to finish.* Not only did they come up to their final temperature at nearly the same time (I was aiming for 130°F), but they also showed the same relative evenness of cooking, and they both seared at the same rate.

*Normally I'd start them on the cool side and finish them on the hot like in this recipe, but that method would have obscured the results of this test.

The cooking rate makes sense—after all, the room temperature-rested steak was barely any warmer on the inside than the fridged-steak, but what about the searing? The outer layer of the rested steak must be warm enough to make a difference, right?

Here's the issue: Steak can't brown until most of the moisture has evaporated from the layers of meat closest to the surface, and it takes a hell of a lot of energy to evaporate moisture. To put it in perspective. It takes five times more energy to convert a single gram of water into steam than it does to raise the temperature of that water all the way from ice cold to boiling hot. So when searing a steak, the vast majority of energy that goes into it is used to evaporate moisture from its surface layers. Next to that energy requirement, a 20, 30, or even 40 degree difference in the temperature of the surface of the meat is a piddling affair.

The Takeaway: Don't bother letting your steaks rest at room temperature. Rather, dry them very thoroughly on paper towels before searing. Or better yet, salt them and let them rest uncovered on a rack in the fridge for a night or two, so that their surface moisture can evaporate. You'll get much more efficient browning that way.

[ping2000]

Ger your steaks out of the fridge and let them get to room temp. Get out your cast iron skillet. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. On stovetop crank it to high. Let the skillet heat up. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Sear steaks on all sides for a couple of minutes. Not too long, you just want a good crust. Place a nice pat of butter on top of each steak. Jab a meat thermometer in the steak. Obviously, I am talking about an oven proof thermometer with a cord. Move the skillet into the oven. Take out when you get to medium rare. Let them rest a few minutes before eating.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

Maybe if the restraunt you go to is Dennys

You absolutely want to let your steak come up a Lil in temp b4 u grill or broil it or cast iron.

Your nonsense about getting sick from a steak being out for a half hour/hour is idiotic

It's Lone Iguana.

If you come to the resident liberal pussy looking for advice on grilling steaks, you're doing it wrong.

[arrwheader]

Get a charcoal grill man! Idk I just eye it and they always come out pretty awesome. Cut matters but filet and rib-eye are pretty good. Fresh is what you want the stuff that has been sitting for awhile is always worse.

[DJ's left nut]

And there was some previous discussion in this thread regarding 'grill vs. skillet'. The debate is always surface contact vs. flavor from the charcoal. Both sides have some merit so the key is to find a possible best of both worlds.

I present to you the Weber Gourmet BBQ system:



I love this thing. I use my wok a lot for the best stir fry you can make at home. The problem trying to use a Wok indoors is that A) Most stoves don't get hot enough unless you have a commercial grade Viking gas top or something. A residential gas stove generally doesn't have the power to really do a Wok well. Forget about an electric and my induction does well on the 'boost' setting but still not as well as it could. B) Smoke. So very much smoke.

So the Weber system has a removable round insert where you can take out the regular grill center and put in a wok. Rocket hot and smoke's outside so win/win. Now as to our steak issue - they have a cast iron flat-top insert as well. You can't do 8 steaks on it but 2 will fit nicely and a third can be squeezed in there with some effort. You can get that thing white hot with some good lump charcoal and get as much surface contact for that real even maillard reaction/sear but still get plenty of the smokeyness that comes from a good outdoor grill.

As a side benefit, because you use heavy inserts, those grates are much heavier duty. Thicker gauge bars so it retains heat a little better for regular applications (better sear marks even if you don't use the cast insert).

The obvious alternative is just putting a cast iron skillet in your grill but some of those cheaper grill grates don't care for that kind of weight sitting on them. I highly recommend this kit if you are looking for a handy little tool with a fair amount of versatility.

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

And there was some previous discussion in this thread regarding 'grill vs. skillet'. The debate is always surface contact vs. flavor from the charcoal. Both sides have some merit so the key is to find a possible best of both worlds.

I present to you the Weber Gourmet BBQ system:



I love this thing. I use my wok a lot for the best stir fry you can make at home. The problem trying to use a Wok indoors is that A) Most stoves don't get hot enough unless you have a commercial grade Viking gas top or something. A residential gas stove generally doesn't have the power to really do a Wok well. Forget about an electric and my induction does well on the 'boost' setting but still not as well as it could. B) Smoke. So very much smoke.

So the Weber system has a removable round insert where you can take out the regular grill center and put in a wok. Rocket hot and smoke's outside so win/win. Now as to our steak issue - they have a cast iron flat-top insert as well. You can't do 8 steaks on it but 2 will fit nicely and a third can be squeezed in there with some effort. You can get that thing white hot with some good lump charcoal and get as much surface contact for that real even maillard reaction/sear but still get plenty of the smokeyness that comes from a good outdoor grill.

As a side benefit, because you use heavy inserts, those grates are much heavier duty. Thicker gauge bars so it retains heat a little better for regular applications (better sear marks even if you don't use the cast insert).

The obvious alternative is just putting a cast iron skillet in your grill but some of those cheaper grill grates don't care for that kind of weight sitting on them. I highly recommend this kit if you are looking for a handy little tool with a fair amount of versatility.

I have that system. I typically use the stainless insert instead of the cast iron; I have a hell of a time overcooking steaks on that cast iron grate.

Maybe the only time on this forum you'll hear me say I'd rather use the SS over CI.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Fire Me Boy!

I agree with your statement that you're not going to get sick. That's just stupid. But the room temperature thing is pretty worthless:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/t...ing-steak.html

HA! You're three years too late, Kenji....

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Also - pat dry before setting on the grate. This is an often overlooked step that makes a huge difference in the crust you're able to get on the outside of the steak.

If you don't do that pat, the first thing to 'cook' is the water on the outside of the steak. That essentially creates a flash steam on the surface and your char isn't as good. It just hurts the flavor.

Patting steaks dry is a trick my old man taught me years ago and I swear, it's the single biggest difference you can make on a steak (apart from seasoning correctly). It really does make all the difference in the world.