I seriously cannot grill a steak without destroying it!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Proper aging isn't just buy meat, tossing it in the fridge, marking your calendar & pulling it out in 4 weeks! Meat must be dry aged, at the appropriate temp & humitidy. Modern dry aged beef is aged while subjected to UV light to kill bacteria on the surface of the meat. Yeah, you can get some of this at home (water evaporating from dry aged beef intensifies the flavor- the UV is a safety issue that has nothing to do with flavor, but safety is no joke...) it's not easy to get the kind of air circulation in your 'fridge as a locker gets.

As for cooking method, it's obviously subjective. That said, culinary legend James Beard conducted a series of experiments that showed the sauteed steak was preferred by the majority of people vs other methods. Appropos of nothing, I suppose, since opinions are like...belly buttons!:ROFLMAO:
 
Thanks for posting that Rob. I came in here to post much of the same although I did not know about the UV light. I am glad to have learned that now.

Proper aging can not easily be done at home. Your home fridge is just not equipped to do it right.
 
I bet, if I were to mount a UV light in the meat box at work, we could try to dry-age some beef.

But, our menu states that we buy Creekstone aged beef, so we probably couldn't deviate from that.

Maybe I should just break down and buy a couple tenders from the club (at cost), take them home, peel and cut them myself.
 
A while back a piece of steak got stored 'improperly' in the fridge for a couple of days. It looked a little dried out. I thought, Suppose to be good for up to a week at these temperatures, hasn't been near that long (about three days), doesn't smell bad, Darn I'm hungry ....

It was the best piece of box store steak I ever had.

Mayhaps I'm lucky to not have gotten the runs, or whatever, and have been tempted to try it again.

But I know enough to know I need to know more before I exceed time and temp storage guidelines.

If I didn't know I needed to know more I could probably get away with it. LOL!
 
I grilled a pair of nice 1-1/4" thick ribeyes tonight, and they were NOT bloody. They were juicy and tender and cooked to a perfect medium rare. On my Weber Genesis gas grill, that means 4 minutes on each side at high direct, then 2-3 more minutes on high indirect (I turn off the middle burner). Rest for 5 minutes, and enjoy. Before grilling, I lightly brush them with EV olive oil, then dust with freshly ground black pepper.

They were excellent steaks, yet they were relatively (for today's beef prices) inexpensive at $6.49 per pound, bought at Sam's club, and frozen for about a month (tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and then sealed individually in 1 quart Ziplock freezer bags)

There is a difference between bloody and juicy. My steaks do not have any raw left in the center, thus no blood. It took a few years, but I trained my stepfather out of well done steaks, and now he wouldn't consider anything but medium rare.
 
Last edited:
A while back a piece of steak got stored 'improperly' in the fridge for a couple of days. It looked a little dried out. I thought, Suppose to be good for up to a week at these temperatures, hasn't been near that long (about three days), doesn't smell bad, Darn I'm hungry ....

It was the best piece of box store steak I ever had.

Mayhaps I'm lucky to not have gotten the runs, or whatever, and have been tempted to try it again.

But I know enough to know I need to know more before I exceed time and temp storage guidelines.

If I didn't know I needed to know more I could probably get away with it. LOL!

One of the best steak I've ever had was a T-bone that was completey green! Yeah, any sane person would have thrown it away, but I used a sharp knive to cut away all the moldy looking gunk. There's absolutely no way I've have ever served that peice of meat to anyone else but I was willing to risk it for myself (as I think I'm nearly immune to all common forms of food poisoning*).


* Yeah, I realize no one is "immune"- but I haven't had a stomach flu nor anything remotely resembling food poisoning since 1984, and not for lack of exposure. I've eat hundreds of pounds of medium rare pork, thousands of over-easy eggs and untold pounds of MR-Med burgers. Maybe someday it'll catch up with me but it hasn't for decades!
:LOL:
 
Sounds appetizing.......
img_575190_0_beff3c9a315fad99aea0d184a1ad8196.gif
 
Escoffier mentioned in his cookbook that meat was to be hanged and seasoned until it was "high" or "seasoned". Usually, this meant that it was starting to become somewhat spoiled.

Did you ever watch Shogun? Richard Chamberlin killed a partridge in one eppy, and hung it up to "season". He said you were supposed to "hang it by the neck until the head fell off." Sounds to me like they were letting the meat spoil slightly. LOL, in that eppy, the shamuri in charge of that village ended up cutting down the bird after a couple of days, as the smell offended him.
 
Did this Sirloin Sat night. I rubbed it with olive oil and sprinkled a generous amount of kosher salt, garlic salt and ground black pepper then let it sit at room temperature for one hour. I get the Weber as hot as possible then throw a couple of pieces of thick sliced bacon on with the steak. About three minutes a side then inside to rest for five minutes.


img_577140_0_d3ebdedc00946a17527a3f68b8279531.jpg
 
Nice looking steak John but, for my taste the outside isn't seared, burnt, crispy, however you want to call it, enough. I love a nice medium rear steak thats nice and charcoaled on the outside almost Pittsburg style. Thats the challenge for me when grilling trying to get that nice burnt outside but not over cooking the middle.

Oh and hello to everyone. Newbie from Massachusetts here. Resident BBQ/grilling weekend warrier/hacker.
 
For me, the steak looks perfect. Since I too have a Weber Kettle grill/BBQ, I know just what flavor you achieved. Yummy!. For an added treat, while gilling the steaks, drizzle some EVOO on portabella mushroom caps, gill side, and grill them alongside the steaks.

Another trick is to grill them with the lid on. This causes more smoke particle deposition on the meat, giving it a smokier flavor.

But again, your steaks look perfect to me.

And for you Quint, the only way I know to get that blackened outside without overcooking the inside is to put extra fat on the fire, litterally. As it drips and flares, the very hot flames will char the outside fast.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
Another way to do it Goodweed and Quint, is to start with a very cold steak. Normally we let steak come to room temp before grilling, but if you want a dark outside and a rare inside then get your fire real hot and put a cold steak on the grill. You could even partially freeze the steak first.
 
A hot grill and thick steak works the best.

A problem with newer propane grills is most of them have some sort of flame tamer which decreases the browning....or what's properly known as the Maillard Effect.
 
i wonder if maillard used sunscreen very often? :-p

when i caved and bought a propane grill, one of the features that i made sure it had was a searing burner. they are fantastic. i use it for blackening peppers; with shrimp and other small fish or veggies in my grill wok; and anything else that requires a hot, direct flame. i've even been able to make really thin, 1/4" steaks medium rare with decent browning on the surface.

it sorta looks like a rectangular catalytic converter where one of the burner/flame tamers should be, with a blue flame across the entire surface.
 
Another way to do it Goodweed and Quint, is to start with a very cold steak. Normally we let steak come to room temp before grilling, but if you want a dark outside and a rare inside then get your fire real hot and put a cold steak on the grill. You could even partially freeze the steak first.

Bingo! I love a very rare steak with a cold center BUT a nicely browned outer surface.
 
I wonder why I don't have silly, diaganol, dark stripes accross my body, 'cause I get grilled every day by my boss, or his boss, or some other person who knows nothing about what they are supposed to know about.:ROFLMAO:

Seeeeeeee; Goodweed of the North
 
ha ha, so many funny posts about grilling, thank you for that!

Dry aged? You know when I learned something (i actually learned something :LOL:) about how the difficulty with grilling meat was the problem of the 'wetness' of the steak.
I watched a show on browning a steak and how the wetness had to be dealt with before it would brown, or show grill marks. So the 'dry aged' thing, will be an advantage prior to pan frying/grilling.
With a venison steak (ya, no fat to forgive the poor methods of cooking), put the steaks on a baking pan and DRY the steak at 295°F for 20 minutes until it reaches an internal temperature of 95°F (now you are on a roll, it will keep cooking). During that time you should have the grill on so it's really hot! Then put it on the grill and give it marks (this should be easy because it is dry and will mark easily), a minute here and there. Once it is cooked 2 or 3 millimeters deep and it has nice grill marks, let it sit on a plate (yes it continues to cook!). After 10 minutes the internal temperature reaches 135 to 140°F . Time to serve, a medium rare steak with grill marks, awesome. The venison was really good.
~Bliss
 
Hi. If you're still looking for a fairly foolproof way to make a steak, why don't you give my method a try? I actually combined two methods I came across, and the result is tender flavorful steak.

You will need a probe, one of those polder ones is best. The instant reads are ok, but you got to keep checking. Start off with the best steaks you can, Prime, choice etc. Look for marbling. You mentioned the right cuts, tbones, porters, ribeyes, strips.

First step is to salt your steak, one hour prior to cooking. Yes, one hour. To read more google Jadens Steamy Kitchen Salt Steak. yeah I can't post urls yet.
I actually do not put as much as that blogger does. I salt my steaks good, but only as much as I normally would anyway, I don't put a ton of salt then rinse later. I salt, then wait. What happens is the salt draws out moisture from the steaks. Then the moisture dissolves the salt and then after that, the meat draws back in this salt water. Makes for flavorful and tender meat. So after that hour, if it's dripping wet still, you can pat dry or just apply whatever seasonings you want. Lots of black pepper, maybe a tiny bit of garlic powder etc.

Ok, preheat your oven to 275F or your grill to roughly the same temp (lid closed after you light). Insert your temp probe in the middle of the steak (if your steak has a bone, I find putting it a bit closer to the bone is better than middle). If using an oven, place the steak on a cooling rack over a half cookie sheet, or improvise as best you can. You want it to be open below the steak. If you have a grill, just put it on the grates, over burners that are not on. Let the steaks come up to temp. You say you like medium? 100-105F is what you're looking for. If you like medium rare (please try it!) 90-95F. When the temp is approaching your target, preheat the grill if you're not using it already. You want it to be fairly hot, but not hottest. Medium hot is good (you can use a cast iron skillet here). If you are using the grill for the preheat then you have to take the steak out, tent it with foil, and get the grill hot as fast as you can. You want to be quick. Ok, once the steak hits around 100F, pull the steak (from oven or grill) and transfer to the medium-hot grill. Cook on each side for no more than 2-2.5 minutes each side. I guess since you don't mind more cooked meat, you won't worry too much if it overcooks, and if it undercooks just throw them back on.

You should have something close to medium. You may have to adjust several things after your first shot. And it seems like a complicated process but it's not. It's just a pre-salt, then a reverse sear. Both methods well documented at Cooks Illustrated. The presalt seasons and apparently tenderizes the meat. The preheat before sear does two things, dries out the surface of the meat (good for not wasting heat and improve searing/browning), and finally, the 1/2 hour cook time allows enzymes to work in overdrive to break down the meat. CI called them cathespins I think. It allows for an abbreviated aging process so to speak, in the oven, in 30 minutes. They tested a reverse sear with a regular sear then finish in the oven, and noted the difference greatly. They even recommend taking the steak from the fridge right to the oven, as it allows the enzymes to work longer. I don't always but I have. Oh yeah, your thick steak (get it thick!) will have only a very thin gray section in the steak, none of that thick band of gray we all hate.
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom