beef science

How You Can Grill Better-Than-Steakhouse Thick Steaks

(1 1/2" thick) ribeyes, USDA Choice

Morton’s kosher salt

"beef love"

black pepper

Why spend a fortune on a steak at a restaurant when you can cook one much better at home thanks to this extensive &quot;how to&quot; recipe.

The Perfect Grilled Steak Recipe

ribeyes, USDA Choice

Mortons coarse kosher salt

beef fat ((a.k.a. beef love))

Prep. About 2 to 4 hours before cooking, trim off most of the external fat. Fat can melt and cause flareups that can deposit soot on the meat and burn the surface. Then sprinkle salt all over the meat. About 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt per pound (half that amount if you use table salt).

Fire up. On a charcoal grill set up your grill for 2-zone cooking. You want one side scorching hot and the other side at about 225°F. This is tricky and you will have to experiment to get it set up right, so do a dry run or two until you get it down.

Get a chimney full of charcoal fully hot and covered in white ash, and push them all to one side. Get them close to the cooking surface, as close as 1" below the meat. I have been known to put bricks in the bottom of a Weber kettle and raise the lower grate to about 2 to 3" below the top grate. I then put dry wood on the coals. On a kamado, insert the deflector plate.

On a gas grill set up with 2-zones  shooting for 225°F in the indirect zone. Start the meat on the indirect zone, put wood on the direct zone, and close the lid. On a pellet grill, set the temp for 225°F. Most of them are all indirect.

Cook. Most home grilled steaks, if you slice into them, progress from dark on the surface, to brown just below the surface, to tan, to pink, and on to red. If you want your steak medium rare, the sad fact is that it is usually only medium rare in a small band of the interior by the time you get the exterior to the right color brown. That means that as much as 1/2 of the interior is overcooked. The challenge is to get the interior the same color bumper to bumper.

To get this done right, we employ the reverse sear cooking method. For the first phase, cooking indirect, you want the meat to warm slowly. I sometimes place the lid on an angle. With the lid on tight, the steaks get too hot too quickly and they get tough.

Sometimes I leave the lid off and put a pan over just the meat. Every grill is different and the weather is also a factor. Experiment.

After about 15 minutes start checking the interior temp with a very thin probe on a very fast thermocouple thermometer like the industry gold standard, the Thermapen. Push it most of the way through and slowly back it out and note the lowest temp. Check every 5 minutes in more than one location. Don&#039;t worry about poking the meat. Steak is 75% liquid, so if you poke a hole in a 16-ounce steak and it loses 1/4 ounce of juice, you&#039;ll still have 11.75 ounces of fluid left.

Why should you keep the probe away from the bone? Muscle and bone are very different composition. Muscle is mostly water. Bone has a hard, dense, outer shell, and the center, can be gelatinous or a honeycomb of mostly air. When you begin to cook meat with bone, the muscle and bone heat at different rates. At first the bone does not heat up as rapidly as the meat, but then, when the bone gets hot, it can get hotter than the muscle. So if you take the temperature close to the bone or touching the bone at the beginning of a cook, the temperature will be lower than the center of the muscle mass because the bone is acting like an insulator. If you take the temperature near or touching the bone, the reading will be higher.

Flip the meat once or twice so it heats evenly on both sides. At this low temp, the exterior color should not go much beyond tan, if you added wood it might get a ruddy glow. When the temp in the deepest part of the meat hits 110 to 115°F, open the lid and leave it open. This could take 30 minutes.

The surface tastes best when high heat instigates several important chemical reactions. The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars created by heat. Caramelization is the browning of sugar by oxidation under heat and there are small amounts of sugars in meat. Combined they beget a rich, complex, caramel or butterscotch flavor.

There are also fats on the surface, and they contribute a lot to the flavor of the meat. When heat melts the fat and chemically alters it, the flavor is drastically altered. Fat reaches its most rich and succulent zenith when golden brown, just before it blackens, and muscle is peak when it is nut brown. Blackening or charring is carbonization, and the taste is not much better than eating charcoal, so you want to stop the process just short of blackening. That's why I never eat at places named "Char House". They tell you on the marquee they plan to ruin my steak!

Remember, searing is the treatment of the surface. It has nothing to do with sealing in the juices. And remember, grill marks are flavorful and crunchy, and they look great , but the goal is to get the entire surface as dark as the grill marks. If the grill marks taste wonderful, why not give the same treatment to the whole surface?

On a charcoal grill bunch the coals all together if necessary or add new hot coals. On a gas grill, crank up the burners. You can take the meat off the grill and add more coals and wait for them to get hot if necessary, and you can take the meat off a gas grill while you wait for it to heat up.

Paint the meat with "beef love" and sprinkle on the black pepper. Gently press it into the surface so it doesn't all fall off, but a lot will. Now move it to the hot side of the grill, as hot as possible, as close to the heat source as possible. The oil helps conduct heat to the meat, assists with browning by frying the surface, and adds flavor. Beware of flareups. They can cause soot.

You want the lid open for this step so all the heat is concentrated on one surface. You don't want heat trapped under the hood cooking the top or sides. They're just about done. When the meat is on the hot side, stand by your grill! Do not wander off and chat up your guests or check your email. Things will move quickly because the meat's surface is already close to 200°F, and you need to be ready to react. If you have charcoal about 1" below the meat, each side can be ready in as little as 3 minutes!

You want the surface to get scorching hot so it will brown quickly without transferring heat to the center. By cooking hot and fast, the heat works mostly on the surface and doesn't have time to migrate deep into the meat.

Keeping the lid open when searing the exterior is essential. This prevents heat buildup from cooking the center of the meat. With the lid closed, the air all around the steak warms and it starts to cook from all sides. In this step we are working only on one surface at a time, nothing else. Check the color of that surface every minute or so and make sure you put the meat back down so the grates touch different parts of the surface. We do not want grill marks. We want everything evenly dark. If a little of the edge fat blackens, that's OK, but don't blacken the muscle fibers.

Flip the meat frequently, every minute. Become a human rotisserie, This allows the energy buildup in the surface to bleed off into the air after you flip. When you flip, try to place the meat on a virgin section of the grate that has not been cooled by contact with steak. After you flip, hit the top side with beef love and freshly ground black pepper. There's enough heat there to extract flavor.

The procedure is identical for the second side. Wait til the color is perfect, paint on beef love, black pepper, flip, sear, and remove form the heat.

On a kamado, remove the meat and put it on a platter. Lift out the deflector plate. Open the lower vent all the way and get the coals good and hot. Use a hair drier in the bottom vent if needed. Lower the cooking grate as close to the coals as possible. an put the steaks back on. Lid open.

On a gas grill, if you have a sear burner, use it. If not, remove the meat and set it aside on a plate for a few minutes while you get the grill ready to sear. Remove the grates, and set them down Close the lid and turn all burners on high. After it&#039;s max heat, open the lid, leave it open, pat one surface of the meat dry, and put it on the hottest part of the grill, dry side down. You might even be able to remove your grates and lower them to sit right on top of the flavor bars or deflectors that protect your burners. Remember, the closer you get to the heat source, the better. You might consider buying GrillGrates. They replace your factory grates and amplify the heat just like the &quot;infrared&quot; or sear burners. You can even flip them upside down to use them like a perforated griddle for an amazing sear. You may want to consider buying a cheap charcoal grill like a hibachi just for searing steaks. Get your grill as hot as possible by preheating it longer than usual with all burners on high and the lid down. You might even be able to remove your grates and lower them to sit right on top of the flavor bars or deflectors that protect your burners. Remember, the closer you get to the heat source, the better.

Leave the lid up during searing and flip the meat every minute or two.

Another option is to preheat a cast iron pan or a griddle in the hot zone, and sear by conduction. It goes fast and covers the entire surface. Again, leave the lid up for the sear phase. Then again, you may want to consider buying a cheap charcoal grill like a hibachi just for searing steaks.

On a pellet grill you should definitely buy a cheap hibachi or use a superheated cast iron griddle or pan for the searing. Most pellet grills are not suited for superheated searing.

When you have both exteriors perfect, the interior should be in the medium rare range, 130 to 135°F (click here for a chart of steak doneness). Err on the side of undercooking, you can always put a steak back on the grill, but if it is overcooked, you cannot bring it back to life.

Serve. Remove the steaks from the grill and serve immediately while still hot. There is no need to rest the meat. It has been proven that this does nothing to improve juiciness. Here&#039;s another video, showcasing how to properly grill a steak.

In this short video from I demonstrate the best method for grilling thin steaks, and the best method for grilling thick steaks. The trick is to get the exterior as dark as possible without burning and still leave the interior an even rosy medium rare from edge to edge without a thick band of tan below the surface. Learn more about grilling and smoking on http://AmazingRibs.com.

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Meathead on WGN

Meathead from AmazingRibs.com shows you how to cook thin and thick steaks differently. 

Here's more on the subject of thick steakhouse steaks http://amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/steakhouse_steaks.html

and more on thin steaks
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/extreme_steak.html

and here's more on searing steaks
http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/cooking_temperatures_and_reverse_sear.html

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Get tested recipes, proven techniques, ratings and reviews, and so much more at https://amazingribs.com

What You Should Know To Perfect All Kinds Of Steaks On The Grill!

Ready to cook the perfect roast beef? Here&#039;s how! Even though we focus on rib roasts below, almost everything here applies to every other beef roast, although other roasts do not have rib bones.

Here's Our Best Beef Roast Recipe

beef

Morton Coarse Kosher Salt ((approximately ½ teaspoon per pound of meat))

Mrs. O'Leary's Cow Crust

beef ribs (or more) or other beef bones

onions

carrots

celery, leaves

soy sauce

mushrooms

dry red wine

bay leaf

water

Trim. About 24 hours before cooking, remove the rib bones and save them for the gravy or for another meal. The gravy is optional and most of the time I don&#039;t bother since the meat is so juicy. There&#039;s plenty of meat between the bones and these beef baby backs can be cooked just like pork baby backs for a real treat.

Trim off all the fat cap from the top. Go ahead and trim right down to the meat. Make sure to get the silverskin too, it can be chewy. Save any pieces that are more meat than fat for the gravy. Save the silverskin for the gravy too. Some of it melts into gelatin.

I leave most of the fat on the side where the bones were because it is hard to remove and it's not very thick. But the fat cap has got to go.

Aim to make it as round as possible. When you have bare meat, it is sort of tear-drop shaped. Press on the sides squishing it into a round tube. If necessary, tie it with string every inch or two to hold it round.

Dry brine. About 6 to 24 hours before cooking, sprinkle it with about 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt per pound of trimmed meat (1/4 teaspoon table salt). It&#039;s a bit hard to measure so here&#039;s how I do it. I use kosher salt which is a larger flake than table salt and it still dissolves easily on the moist meat. I sprinkle it from high above so it is evenly distributed. And I sprinkle about the same amount I would if I was about to eat the meat. Thick cuts need a bit more. Do not over salt! Put it in the fridge. This is a method called dry brining. The salt is sucked into the meat, seasons it, and it messes with the protein structure to help retain moisture. There is a lot of meat to penetrate, so you can use the salt generously, but don&#039;t make a thick cake of it, and you will not need to rinse it off. It will all be sucked in. You should wrap it with plastic wrap just to keep other foods from coming in contact with meat juice.

1 hour before cooking. Make a spice paste with my recipe for Mrs. O&#039;Leary&#039;s Cow Crust, a blend of herbs and spices mixed with water. The water releases the flavors in the herbs and spices and helps with browning and forming a crust. Let it sit for at least 1 hour before applying it to the meat so the herbs can reconstitute and release their goodness. Pour most of the paste on top of the roast. Spread it around all visible surfaces working it into the meat. Turn the roast over and pour the rest on the bottom and work it around. It does not penetrate the meat so you can do this any time up to the time you cook. Do not use Meathead&#039;s Memphis Dust or any rub with sugar in it because this meat doesn&#039;t need sweetness and we don&#039;t want the crust to burn. I usually just put it in the fridge without the plastic wrap because I want the flavorings on the meat, not the plastic. It&#039;s only for an hour or so, just be careful not to cross contaminate other food with the meat.

Prepare the gravy. The gravy is really a killer beef stock. You won&#039;t need the gravy for the meat because it will be soooo juicy, but you will like it, and you will want it for my Garlic Mashed Potatoes. And you should make my Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Yes you really should. There will be plenty leftover gravy that you can use for Italian Beef Sandwiches, Beef on Wick sandwiches, French Dip Sandwiches, for beef soup, or for making rice or couscous. There is no end of uses for a good, rich, homemade beef stock. But if you want to skip the gravy, nobody will complain unless you overcook the meat.

To prep the gravy, remove the root ends from the onions and cut the onions into quarters. Peel the carrots and chop into 1-inch pieces. Clean the celery and chop into 1-inch (25 mm) pieces.

There are three ways to make the gravy. (a) You can make it in advance indoors, (b) you can make it while cooking the roast on the grill, or (c) you can make it in advance indoors and still put it under the roast to catch smokey drippings. All three are excellent.

You can make a fine gravy with just the meaty trimmings from the roast, but it will be better if you add some bones. If you removed the bones from a rib roast use them. If not, ask your butcher for some beef bones. Throw the bones on a grill in indirect heat at about 325°F (163°C), or in a smoker, or in the oven until they are brown on the outside. If you have a bandsaw, cut the bones in half lengthwise so more marrow is exposed or have your butcher do it. Get a big pot and put all the bones in it. Add the meaty trimmings with the fat attached. Don&#39;t throw all the fat in. Add the veggies. If there is no leftover rub, add some of thyme, rosemary, and garlic powder.

If you are cooking it indoors, turn the pot on low and let it simmer for about 3 hours, lid off. Occasionally skim off any foamy scum. Don't worry about skimming the fat yet. And don't worry about alcohol, most of it boils off. Nobody will get tipsy. Your kids won't be led down the path of degradation.

After about 3 hours strain out the bones and any other large solids and discard them. Then run the stock through a mesh strainer. Taste it and cook it down if it tastes too bland. When it is the right intensity, then you can adjust the seasonings. Refrigerate it. After several hours the fat will rise to the top and form a thick hard layer. Peel it off and discard it. If you have one of those fat separator cups you can use that. Back in the fridge it goes for now. What remains is a fine beef stock.

If you wish, you can put all the gravy ingredients into a pan and put it under the roast while it cooks in order to catch the smoky drippings. Another option is to prepare the gravy in advance indoors, strain it, and then put it in a pan under the roast to catch drippings.

Fire up.  Set up your grill or smoker for 2-zone cooking  and preheat the indirect zone to 225°F (107°C). It is very important that you not cook hotter than 250°F (121°C) or so. I don&#39;t care what the cookbooks or the TV chefs say. You don&#39;t want to cook so hot that the meat gets dark on the outside before it is done on the inside. Watch the computer simulations above.

Clean the grates thoroughly before the gravy/drip pan goes on. Boil the gravy in a sauce pan and then pour it into the drip pan. Don&#39;t pour cold gravy in the pan. If you have a small grill, you can put the pan right over the fire. It then becomes a heat shield and the meat will be in the indirect zone. For more info on setting up your cooker, read my articles on how to setup a gas grill, a charcoal grill, a bullet smoker, and an offset smoker. And you can do this indoors!

Cook. If you have a meat thermometer with a probe on a cable, and you should, insert it now so the tip is dead center in the thickest part of the meat. If you don&#39;t have a probe you can leave in the meat, you absolutely must have a good digital instant read meat thermometer and you should check it every 30 minutes at first, and more often as the cook progresses. You should also have a good oven thermometer that has a probe you can place near the meat in the grill/oven, but place it at least 2&quot; (51 mm) away so it is not in the cold air bubble surrounding cold meat. Read my Thermometer Buying Guide to learn how they work and which are the best.

If you made the gravy in advance, get it hot and pour it into the drip pan. If you haven't made it yet, follow the instructions above and put the ingredients in the drip pan. Use hot water or else it will take a long time to heat on the grill and slow everything down.

Smoke. If you want a smoke flavor in the background add just a little bit of hardwood or fruitwood to the hot part of the cooker, about 2 to 4 ounces (57 to 113 g) max right at the start of the cook. Don&#39;t overdo the smoke. A little bit is nice, but too much can ruin it. I cannot overemphasize this. This cut of meat does not benefit from a lot of smoke. Keep it in the background. What kind of wood? I don&#39;t think it makes a huge difference since you are using so little. Pick your favorite. I usually grab a fruitwood like apple. Read my article on the science of Wood.

Monitoring your meat. You will want to look under the hood occasionally during the cook, but make it infrequently and quickly. During the cook check the meat temp after 30 minutes and more frequently as things move along. Check the drip pan, keeping at least 1/2&quot; (1.3 cm) of liquid in the pan. Add hot water if necessary. Do not let it dry out and burn. Look at the meat and if one side is getting too dark, rotate or turn the meat, otherwise there is no need to touch it. If you have a problem with your cooker, perhaps the gas runs out or the charcoals start to die or the temp just won&#39;t stay at 225°F (107°C), or it is really cold outside, you can bring it inside after about an hour and finish it in the oven. It has gotten all the smoke flavor you need. But the drier heat and airflow on the grill makes a better crust than the oven.

Searing. When the temp in the deepest part of the interior reaches 115°F (46°C), remove the probe (it just gets in the way), remove any string if you used it, and place the roast over the hottest part of the grill. Remove the drip pan and bring it inside. Raise the lid and stand by your grill, as Tammy Wynette once sang (click the link for my version of her song). Get the surface a deep dark brown by leaving it on the hot part for about 5 to 10 minutes. Roll it a quarter turn and repeat on all four sides. We leave the lid up because we no longer want to roast the interior. We are focusing the heat on the exterior now. During this process, the interior will rise another 5 to 10°F anyway. Check the temp again and take it off at 130°F (54°C) to 135°F (57°C) for medium rare.

If you are cooking indoors or on a pellet grill, you can sear under the broiler indoors. If you have a small gas grill just crank it all the way. On a gas smoker, remove the water pan and the wood pan and put the meat down close to the flame.

Finishing the gravy. While the meat is searing, pour the liquid from the drip pan through a strainer and taste it. It should be rich. If it is wimpy, dump it into a frying pan, turn the heat to high, and reduce it. It will reduce faster in a wide frying pan than in a narrow sauce pan. Taste and add salt if needed only after it is the proper consistency, but it shouldn't need salt because the drippings have salt in them. Pour the gravy into a gravy boat and serve alongside the platter of meat or ladle it on the mashed potatoes, or just freeze it for later use.

Serving. There is no need to rest the roast. It is a myth that this makes it more juicy. Serve your meat hot! You will need a cutting board or a platter that can hold liquid. Even if you rest the meat a lot of liquid will flow. Don&#39;t let it escape! First remove the string. Use a really sharp knife and cut servings about 1/2&quot; (1.3 cm) thick. Pour any drippings from the cutting board onto the platter of cut meat. If you want to amp it up to 11, serve my Secretariat Horseradish Cream Sauce on the side. Here&#39;s a video highlighting the entire process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcg7BzuME5o

Meathead of AmazingRibs.com shows his recipe and technique for beef roasts from prime rib to tenderloin. The trick is getting an even color on the inside and a dark crust on the outside. Here's the recipe https://tinyurl.com/bq6w8zl

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The Ultimate Beef Roasts - Watch Now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzLtctivmHw

Meathead shows you how to break down a prime rib into the best parts for roasting, grilling, and smoking. Click here for instructions on how to cook prime rib properly: https://tinyurl.com/y46lydfl

Did you enjoy this video?  Subscribe to our channel. Also, subscribe to our newsletter, Smoke Signals and receive tested recipes, proven techniques, reviews, and so much more. Click here: https://tinyurl.com/y8ctxfzf

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The Best Way To Prepare A Prime Rib from Meathead at AmazingRibs.com

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How You Can Grill Better-Than-Steak...

The Perfect Grilled Steak Recipe

Here's Our Best Beef Roast Recipe

Top 3 beef science recipes from across the web

The most viewed beef science recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

Top Tags

How You Can Grill Better-Than-Steak...

The Perfect Grilled Steak Recipe

Here's Our Best Beef Roast Recipe

The most viewed beef science recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine