Help a n00b grill his fancy steak!

Cafe Society
1

So, after years of complaining about the steaks gramps makes at home, I’ve decided to take over the reins tomorrow and try my hand at this. No more carpet bombing t-bones in seasoning salt and cooking them to the consistency of shoe leather, said I.

Problem is, for all my bravado and blustering, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, either…which is why I turned to the internet for advice.

I went off to a butcher downtown and got the prime grade 28 day aged rib steaks. The marbling is UNBELIEVABLE. But now that I have ninety dollars worth of beef in the fridge, and a gas grill at my disposal, I want to make sure that I’m doing it right.

Can someone offer a simple, easy way to get the best flavor out of these? My google fu tells me to just use a little EVO, salt and pepper, which is fine. Should I let it marinade now for tomorrow evening? Paint it on just before? What is this I hear about letting the steak “rest?”

I appreciate any ignorance that you can help me fight, Grill Dopers. :slight_smile:

2

No marinade!!!
What I do with rib-eyes, is this

  1. take them out of the fridge about an hour or two before you want to eat. You want them at room temp before they hit the grill
  2. about 10 minutes before they hit the grill, rub them with salt and pepper or Montreal Steak Spice or whatever you prefer on your steak and brush them with olive oil so they glisten.
  3. crank the ever loving hell out of your grill, you want it so hot the exterior can be seen boiling the water vapour out of the air :slight_smile: I usually let my three burner grill cook on high for 20 minutes before I put the steaks on.
  4. The sear: when the grill is as hot as can be, drop your steaks on. Turn after a minute or so (could be as soon as 30 seconds, you know your grill, right?), you want the grill marks to show but the meat shouldn’t stick too much anymore. Flip them again after a minute, turn the heat right down and keep the lid open. Another minute or so later, flip them again onto a hitherto unused part of the grill (If you flip them right you get a nice hash pattern.) the grill should be cooling down now, I keep the lid open till I am happy the temps are dropping. The steaks will probably need to be flipped a few minutes after this, but play it by ear, this next flip is about appearance…
  5. the low and slow: after the fourth flip the temps should be low, now slowly let the meat cook till your desired doneness. If you flip fast enough during the sear you will have a delicious steak, flip too slow and you will have a 1/4" thick “crust” of dry steak to contend with…
  6. before the steaks go on, slice up portabella mushrooms, saute with garlic till just softening, reduce heat add red wine, salt and pepper and finish cooking the shrooms while the red wine reduces and serve as a topper for the steaks.

That’s my goto plan for steaks. I am hungry now!

3

If I’m cooking a T-Bone, Filet, or Ribeye I never marinate. It’s my preference with those cuts to let the flavor of the meat speak for itself. I usually make a sauce of some sort (usually a red wine reduction) to eat with the steak at the table.

My preparation is to take the steak out of the fridge and brush a little olive oil on each side of the steak. For the seasoning I usually use a steak rub but salt and pepper are always good too. If you’re grilling use a little more seasoning than you think is necessary because much of it will be carried away with the juices when they drip off. Be careful not to go overboard on the seasoning - remember the seasoning is there to complement the meat, not be the star. Once seasoned I cover the steak and let it come up to room temperature. This usually takes at least 30 minutes to an hour.

I use a charcoal grill and prepare the fire for indirect cooking. I put the steak on the indirect heat side first and cook covered about 5-7 minutes or so per side depending on thickness of the steak. My goal is to bring the inside of the steak to 100 degrees. At this point the steak begins to glisten and sags just a little bit.

Once the inside is at 100 I put the steak directly over the fire for 1 - 2 minutes per side uncovered. This raises the steak to about 120 degrees and gives me a nice char on the outside. I take it off the grill and put it on a metal rack over a bowl and let it sit for about 10 minutes (yes the rack lets the juices run off but I worked hard for the crust on the steak and I want to keep it. I use the leftover juices in the pan sauce I’m making. While the meat is sitting the latent heat lets it coast up to a nice medium rare which is how I like it.

The most important thing I found for steak quality is a good instant read thermometer. It takes all of the guesswork out of the cooking and will give you consistant quality steaks every time you cook. Second - never cut into the steak while it’s cooking or immediately after you take it off the grill. If you do - far too much of the juice will be lost and you can end up with a dry piece of meat.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

4

Ha - Ford Prefect and I obviously like our steaks the same way - we just flip when we do the sear. He does it first, I do it last. I learned this technique from Alton Brown and I find that it gives me a thin cooked outside with a nice red inside. To be fair he advocates both methods in different shows so it all comes down to personal preference in the end.

5

I concur with the posters above. The sear-first, then finish method is the classic method. The “reverse sear,” where you first bring the steak up to temp slowly, then finish with the sear is a more modern method. I prefer the reverse sear method, personally, and use it on everything from steaks to roasts to even sausages. I don’t even bother getting the meat up to room temperature first–the method works find on a straight-from-fridge steak (and I believe Cook’s Illustrated cooking it in a slow oven/grill straight from the fridge. They had some explanation for why it’s better this way, but I take CI’s with a little bit of a grain of salt.)

But, yeah, if it’s a good cut of meat, no marinade. I just do salt, pepper. That’s it. Oh, and a little bit of oil.

6

For a good steak, I use coarse salt and that’s it. Sprinkle both sides and use a spoon to gently press the crystals into the meat, cover with plastic and let it sit on the counter for a half hour or more. More than one person I’ve had over has expressed disbelief that that’s all I did to prepare them.

7

Its amazing what a little bit of mushrooms and onions can do. I recently did a typical steak, but made an onion and mushroom topping like many restaurants do. I think it was some of the best tasting meat I’ve ever had. Use a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom and roasted garlic, add in some chopped white onions and chopped button mushrooms. Stirfry that in a shallow pan until the onions and mushrooms are cooked and put on top of the finished steak.

As for the grill, I just sprinkle on some pepper and garlic salt, brown it on high heat in a pan, then finish it off in the oven on medium heat.

8

If my grill had a instant super hot option I would try the reverse sear. Frazzled’s indirect cooking over charcoal gives that option to the cook.

I should had a warning about the olive oil, when searing you cannot leave your grill! The risk of damaging (to the steak) flames is very real and can happen at a moment’s notice. Again, you should know which areas of your grill are more suscepible to flamage.

One thing I want to try one day is to rub a slight amount of brown sugar over the meat, maybe a bit more salt to counter the sweetness, but I think it could give a nice bit of crunch to the surface. I just haven’t had the nerve to potentially ruin a good steak with that idea yet.

9

No one’s mentioned thios but for the love of Pete let the steak rest for at least 5 min after you take it off the grill - 10 would be better. If you’re worried about it getting cold you can lightly tent it with foil. If you’re worried about the crust getting soggy you can rest them on a rack over a plate to catch the juice.
But really it makes a big difference.

10

Sounds like some people I’d enjoy a steak with here. My simple input:

Like the others have said, bring the steak up to room temperature before cooking, do not put cold meat on the grill!

Marinade is for people who don’t know how to buy a good cut of meat or cook it. If I were stuck in the wilderness and had to eat my boots, I would marinade them, but not a good steak. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Not any Johnny’s, Montreal, soy sauce, or any other foo foo crap. If you or your guests want to add A-1 or BBQ sauce after it is cooked, that is a personal taste issue. But that sort of thing does not belong on the grill while cooking.

When the steak is on the grill, you only turn it over ONCE! You can slide a spatula under it and turn it without flipping it a half turn to get that cross hatch pattern, but for God’s sake, you only flip it over once. If you are going to keep poking and flipping it over you might as well make yourself a pair of sandles out of it.

11

Want…to…eat…at…FordPrefect’s…house.

I’ll bring my towel. Gin and tonics.

12

We swear by 15. At least I do - my husband refuses to wait that long. He’s already chomping by five minutes.

13

Agreed. However, in practice it takes at least 5 - 10 minutes to get everyone seated at the table, wine glasses filled, toasts made, side dishes served, drool wiped, etc. :slight_smile:

BubbaDog, offer to bring a couple bottles of good Malbec and you might find yourself a the Prefect dinner table :slight_smile:

ETA: If it weren’t for my pork butt smoking plans this weekend, I would be picking up rib-eyes. Hell, I may just do both, it is a long weekend up here in Canada.

14

How thick are the cuts of steak? 1"? 1.25"? 1.5"? Also are these rib steaks on the bone, or boneless ribeyes? That will largely determine how long to cook them for, which is the key thing, along with letting the steaks rest to evenly spread the juices. And, is this a gas grill or charcoal?

First of all: Ditto on the not marinating aged rib steaks. Oh no no no no.

Second: If possible, let the steaks come to room temperature or close to it before grilling them.

Me, I keep it very simple. If I had 2 to 3 rib steaks on the bone cut to 1.25" to 1.5" thickness and my backyard gas grill, I’d do this to achieve what I consider medium rare steaks:

0 - Turn on all burners on my grill and shut the lid to preheat it. About 8-10 minutes.

1 - Rub steaks with coarse ground black pepper, garlic (either finely chopped/minced or just garlic powder), and a dash of cayenne pepper and (this is my personal magic spice) curry powder. Then, just before they go on the grill (or even after they come off the grill), a few sprinkles of salt.

2 - Lightly brush the steaks with extra virgin olive oil. Or spritz, if you have one of those olive oil spray thingies. Usually i just drizzle a little bit on the one side of each steak, then use the unoiled side of the other steaks to rub the oil around on the oiled side. That way both sides are lightly oiled. Then I run the edges of the steaks through the little bit of extra oil that rolls off onto the plate during that rubbing.

3 - By now the grill should be hot. Turn the burners down to 3/4 and toss the steaks on while CLOSING the lid to maintain maximum heat.

4 - 3 minutes later, open the lid and flip again.

Now the rest depends on how thick the steaks are. If they’re boneless steaks and only 1" thick, that’s it, steaks are done grilling. For 1.25" thick steaks, I grill another 2 minutes a side with the lid open. For 1.5" or thicker steaks, I will turn off the center burner(s), put the steaks in the middle over the turned-off burner and leave just the two burners on the outside on at HIGH. Then I shut the lid and cook for another 3-4 minutes a side (indirect heat).

If the steaks are on the bone I upgrade the cooking time as if it were thicker, otherwise the meat next to the bone is much more rare. Also if I were making steaks right out of the fridge after getting home from work.

Remove steaks and cover with tinfoil for about 5 minutes. If the cuts are very thick or on the bone, let them rest a bit longer, but for steaks cut for single portions each I wouldn’t think you need to rest them longer than 10 minutes even for thick cuts on the bone. This isn’t a prime rib roast!

15

Actually, this has been mentioned in Frazzled’s post. But it doesn’t hurt to emphasize. 5-10 minutes is about perfect for me. 15 minutes for a steak is a little bit too much, IMHO.

16

In case it wasn’t obvious/clear, by “flip again… Now the rest depends on how thick the steaks are” in step #4 there I meant “flip and close the lid for 3 minutes again…”. Typed too quickly I guess.

17

Myth. No less than Steve Raichlen, of Barbecue Bible fame, has stated it matters not. You’re putting the meat on a 600° surface. 35 degrees of difference is jack squat.

A three zone fire that everyone is talking about is a cinch on a multi-burner gas grill, and not terribly involved over charcoal. Have a high heat zone for searing, medium for cooking, and a no heat zone in case of flareups. The order of cooking is your preference. I grill rare and medium rare, so I sear first because that gets my steak most of the way their by itself.

18

Salt, salt, salt and more salt. Kosher salt that is. Let the steaks sit salted for at least an hour before rinsing them off and patting them until they’re as dry as you can get them. Then grill as above. Be sure to let them rest afterwards, your patience will be rewarded.

The salt tip comes from America’s Test Kitchen although I’m sure that they didn’t originate it.

19

I personally just do a two-zone in a Weber kettle. Just one side with hot coals, one side without, and start the steak on the cold side as far away from the coals as possible.

20

I think the 600 degree surface is why room temp is important, the target goal for a rare to medium rare steak is 125 - 140F. The extra time spent on that 600 deg grill raising the temp of the meat from 46F to 72F is drivng more moisture out of your steak. I think it’s time for a steak off :slight_smile: