All right, it’s go time! I am going to try the reverse sear even though it is a gas grill. My dry-brined, dry-aged, pepper and garlic powder sprinkled and olive-oil brushed ribeye is on the top grill, lid closed on low for 20-30 minutes. I have an old food thermometer but I forgot it at the place I am moving out of, so I may screw it up. But it’s for science, that’s ok.
Well thanks, everybody! That was one tasty steak. I served it sprinkled with celery salt (which I put on everything these days) and some good scotch on the rocks that I picked up to celebrate my new place. I doubt it would have come out remotely as well if I hadn’t asked for advice here first.
Without the thermometer, I had to have some other way to tell how done the steak was. I tried two things: slicing off pieces and eating them, and slicing the steak to check out the internal color. In the end the color was rather consistent throughout, just a bit pinker in a narrow band in the center. It was probably more medium than anything, kind of a caramel brown all over instead of the recommended grill-marks all over, cooked a little too long because the heat wasn’t enough. I think the charcoal guys are right: the gas grill doesn’t get hot enough to really sear it right. If I did it this way again, the 2nd rack initial half-hour heating would be done at slightly higher-than-low temp, and I might then move it to the searing station.
I know, $119, but on the left there is a burner directly below a fold-down flat metal plate. What else could that be for? On that, I could get the meat real close to the heat, on a flat metal plate, flipping it and searing it. I better smear it with olive oil first.
I picked up the best brass grill brush I could find. I will take the advice to scrape and oil my grill. I actually don’t want to eat a whole lot of red meat, or meat of any kind really, I am just having too much fun with the BBQ.
This is it.
Glad to hear it came out well!
I think most of us who’ve been really been bitten by the grilling bug end up with both gas and charcoal rigs for different purposes (if you’re cooking for 1-2 and don’t need a lot of surface area, a little Weber Smokey Joe is only 30 bucks and can get pretty damn hot…)
The Finger Test to Check the Doneness of Meat
There are two basic methods to test for how done your meat is while you are cooking it—use a meat thermometer, or press on the meat with your fingertips. The problem with the meat thermometer approach is that when you poke a hole into the meat with a thermometer, it can let juices escape, juices that you would rather have stay in the meat. For this reason, most experienced cooks rely on a “finger test” method, especially on steaks (whole roasts are better tested with a thermometer).
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My mother has been trying to get me to test meat with my fingertips for years, and for years, being somewhat of a scaredy cat (won’t it burn my fingers?) I ignored, avoided, ran away from the idea.
Then my friend David showed me up. Here’s a guy who loves to grill but doesn’t know how to boil water. (Really. Cannot boil water. Just ask him, he’s proud of the fact.) David taught me how to test for the doneness of meat using this method and these days half the time I don’t even bother with a thermometer.
The finger test is not accurate and I would never rely on it. Meathead at amazingribs.com agrees, but I can’t find that page.
Now that I’m not posting from my phone:
The author of the above article, 7 Old Wives’ Tales About Cooking Steak That Need To Go Away, J. Kenji López-Alt, is the Managing Culinary Editor of Serious Eats, previously working at America’s Test Kitchen. Both places (and Amazing Ribs) scientifically test food myths for accuracy. Spoiler alert - most aren’t, even when Wolfgang Puck repeats them.
Here are the 7 Myths:
It’s just a cover so when you’re not using the burner you have a level surface to set stuff down on. This is a sear burner.
Since he linked to the exact model, we know that it is a side burner, not a sear burner, which are two very different things. My gas grill has a side burner with a cover too. It can be used to make sauces or other small quick sides. Knowing Brinkman products and side burners, I wouldn’t use it for anything that needs intense heat or long high heating times (like boiling water for a pot of corn or pasta).
Here’s how I cook my steaks. These are < 1cm thick 250-300g sirloin steaks from the supermarket, but not the super-thin ones. They’re still too thin for me to use the touch test.
Turn oven on, set to 50 degrees C (lowest temp available). Put plate in oven to warm.
Heat pan.
Take steak out of fridge and place in pan.
Heat for ~2 mins 15 seconds a side for medium-rare. Drop by 10-15 seconds for rare.
Using tongs, gently hold the steak vertical in the pan to sear the fat ‘rind’.
Place on plate in oven, cover with foil, and let rest while you make the sauce / gravy and the potatoes finish cooking.
I don’t use salt at all if I can help it (doctor’s orders).
My steak grilling technique is to keep the seasoning simple (usually just seasoned salt and pepper). For a typical thickness on my charcoal grill, I do two minutes, turn, two minutes, flip, two minutes, turn, two minutes-ish, pull when done. On my indoor cast iron grill pan, it’s more like three minute intervals for the same steak.
The finger test works just fine for me. I’ve never done the finger test and then cut it open to find something different than I expected. (Not for steaks anyway; larger roasts need a thermometer).
I usually let them rest after cooking, but I don’t really need it as a separate step. By the time folks are finally seated and ready to eat, the steaks will have rested enough.
You’ll notice that my method only has a single turn, but it’s not based on the argument that flipping them multiple times is bad. It’s just a simple way to keep track of where I am in the cooking process and to get nice-looking grill marks.
There are several saying that gas grills don’t get hot enough. That may be true in the price range of the OP, but I have a “cheap” grill that I bought as a stand in while my Weber Summit was being fixed (a rare thing) because it was a holiday weekend. It was probably around $250 or so. It is a Char-Broil Red series from several years ago. I actually really like it, and made burgers tonight. After 15 minutes of preheating, the thermometer pegged out at over 700 (yes, I have checked it with a laser thermometer… as well as scorching my arm hair if I am not quick enough at flipping things). I believe the Summit gets even hotter.
I have a charcoal (Weber Kettle), two propane (Summit and Char-Broil), and an electric (gasp) box smoker that I use fairly regularly and honestly I use the “cheap” Char-Broil the most as it is smaller and easy to toss something on quickly.
I won’t even go into the tailgate grill, camping grills, grate over the fire pit, and the Turkey Fryer that I also use for outdoor cooking from time to time.
On the subject of gas grills, why have they gone away from the concept of ceramic briquets and move to these silly “flavor bars”.
My favorite gas grill is a old Kenmore gas grill. It originally came with “lava rocks”, but those didn’t last long. I looked online and found a new steel grate, new burner, and new ceramic briquets. One layer of the ceramic briquets over the H-burner does a fantastic job. Hot enough for steaks, but also able to be controlled with even enough heat to do a great job on chicken (chicken has a lot of fat–even if you remove all you see beforehand–so you have to be able to control the heat so the fat does not catch fire and make chicken suzette).
I will have to say that the best grill I have seen for cooking steaks is a George Foreman Indoor/Outdoor grill my wife bought a few years ago. It’s electric and she puts it on High (5), preheats it for 5 minutes and cooks a 3/4" to 1" ribeye 3 minutes on one side, two on the other. Of course, seasoned with salt, garlic powder, and coarse ground pepper, with a sprinkling of Dale’s sauce. Medium-rare heaven. Still red in the center, but not cold. With a baked potato.
Thanks, I didn’t know that. Still, I have a little griddle, I can put that on the side burner after taking it out of the grill and get it real hot and sorta sear the steak on that. And use it as the plate on the patio furniture. It is worth a try.
Recently I bought a sous vide cooker - this one to be exact:
This is the no brains approach to making a perfect steak every time. I seal it in a bag and let it cook in a water bath at 130 degrees for anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours depending on the thickness of the steak. The beauty of the sous vide is that it’s very forgiving on time - I could let it go longer if other things are taking longer without any threat of degrading the meat. Once it’s done I use a cast iron skillet that I’ve heated to the point of smoking for a minute or 2 per side, again depending on steak thickness, and I end up with a beautifully cooked, med rare steak, every single time. Seriously, this is one kitchen gadget worth every penny.