How should I cook this?

[Barabe]

Hi Ribbers,

I am Looking for recommendations on how I should cook this lovely hunk of meat...
I know how to cook a steak. I know LOTS of good ways to cook a steak. What I want to know is how YOU think I should cook THIS steak. I got several of these last year before beef prices went crazy. I don't buy a lot of beef because I have a freezer full of venison, but this thing looks SO GOOD, and every now and then I just want a bunch of corn fed, fatty beef.

in case you can't tell from the pic, it is a rib steak about 2.5" thick, and it is thawing in my fridge.

I cooked an other one last fall, on my PBJr. I drilled a hole in the bone and hung it from one of hte hooks. It was good, but overcooked. I prefer medium rare, and it was pretty much medium by the time the surface was looking good. I didn't probe it. I was sort of still learning how the barrel cooked.
I have pretty much all options on the table:

• Sous vide (not my favorite for steaks)
• gas grill
• weber charcoal grill
• PBJr
• propane smoker
• frying pan.
• microwave (don't even....)
• Air fryer (can't imagine that would be a great option, but let's be inclusive...)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[tbob4]

My opinion only - I would 100% go with the Weber. I would dry brine a day in advance. I would set the Weber up for indirect. I would get the charcoal hot and would hit both sides with direct heat for 1 minute. I would then cover and move to the indirect side. If you have a thermo, I would insert and monitor. Once the steak gets to 115, move it back to direct and flip until the temp reaches about 125-130. Take off and monitor. It should go up to to about 138-142. That is my temp for medium rare. For others it’s medium.

[tbob4]

FireMan - yeah, I’ve been told my medium rare is medium. My daughter especially rolls her eyes at my definition of rare.

[Caffeine88]

+1, but with FireMan temps. Looking forward to the pix

[glitchy]

tbob4 rare is purple.

[Jfrosty27]

Wow. What a steak. I’m sure you’ll get a variety of opinions here. Mine is this: It’s so thick the trick is to cook it evenly on the inside get that yummy hard sear on the outside. Tricky for sure. I have had success with a hard front sear via whatever method fits your liking. Then slow in the oven or smoker to your desired doneness. Expl: I would hard sear it over charcoal on the kettle. Then low and slow in the pellet pooper to a rare+ level. But that’s just my opinion. You’ll get plenty more.

[Mosca]

I would reverse sear it. If I were doing it indoors, I’d use the oven at 250* (because that is almost a tiny rib roast), take it to 120*. Then I’d sear it off in the cast iron. Outdoors, prep the Weber for 2 zone, make sure your hot is blazing though.

[Barabe]

blazing like over a charcoal chimney starter? I can do that

[ofelles]

ditto

[SheilaAnn]

+1 it looks gorgeous!

"Let’s be inclusive" regarding the air fryer…. Tea just about came out my nose!!!

[mcook2201]

Our preferred method; we all are Med Rare fans too. Season meat with desired ingredients. Counter rest in a cool place for about an hour. Reverse sear on weber kettle until internal temp is around 120°ish. I either kettle cook or open fire cook all steaks.

Remove steak and cover. Stoke that fire Hot in the kettle. Toss steak back on over flamming coals and flip steak about each minute. Pull and rest when internal temp is at 130. It should rise to 135ish for your med-rare.

Serve with fav beverage. Red Oak here.

[texastweeter]

That steak is big enough it will rise 10° or more during the rest I bet.

[texastweeter]

Dry brine for about 20 hours then low and slow in the webber indirect until about 118°. Pull and wait for temp to peak, then drop back to about 115°. Then put the spurs to her as hot as you can direct heat flipping every about 15 seconds until a deep dark crunchy bark forms. Then hit it with fresh ground pepper and garlic, slice and serve.

[FireMan]

Well, the consensus is the 120 range. I would be so afraid of that hunk over cookin I would stop at 107 to 110. Just sayin. Then sear it. Or, sear it & bring it to 120. Yup, I’m stickin with it.

[texastweeter]

Will rise a lot, significant thermal mass there.

[WSM David]

I did a reverse sear with a tomahawk steak a couple of months ago. I wanted to smoke it but the bone was too long to fit in my WSM so I started in the oven until 110 and then seared on a weber grill. I was really happy with the results: nice medium rare with minimal temperature gradient. Honestly I'm kinda glad I ended up not smoking the steak, might've been a bit overwhelming to such a great cut of meat.

[bbqLuv]

Reverse sear on my Traeger. Send it to me and I will be thankful.

[Red Man]

I’m gonna contradict the consensus on pull temp here. Guessing on carryover is pretty tough. I’ve found that cooking indirect at around 200 results in only a couple degrees of carryover. I do a reverse sear, cooking indirect at 200. The really important step is to rest before the sear. This allows the meat to begin cooling off, which will prevent it from overshooting during the sear. It’s also really important to sear as hot and quickly as possible. I pull at 128-130 for medium rare and carryover is negligible. The size of the steak does not determine the amount of carryover, the cooker temp does. The higher the cooker temp, the more carryover there will be. Here’s a pic of a very thick ribeye I cooked this way. Pulled at 130.

[Rob whatever]

I follow this process for all my steaks. I learned the resting option from both Aaron Franklin and Jacob Burton.

Rob

[Red Man]

Here’s a strip roast reverse seared, pulled from indirect at 130.

[tbob4]

Nice write up and the photos are really good.

[Troutman]

Regardless of the method that’s one awesome looking hunk of meat 👍

[rickgregory]

So... carryover. A lot of carryover depends on what the indirect temp was. If you do something indirect at 225 carryover might be minimal. If you do indirect at 350... it wont be minimal.

Remember what carryover IS... it's the heat from the outer part of the meat moving in and warming the interior. If the steak was just pulled from a 350 grill, the outside is hotter. It thus has more heat to radiate and some will radiate inward. If it was in a 225 grill, it's not as hot and the outer layers have less energy to give to the interior.

The take away here is to do a reverse sear at a low-ish temp if you want to limit carryover.

PS: This is also influenced by time. Something in a oven for 10 minutes will have minimal carryover regardless (well unless the oven is at 500F...) but 30 minutes might mean significant carryover the meat is in there for ~30 minutes.

[glitchy]

If sous vide is your thing, then 130-132 for 1.5-2 hours, let sit 10-15 mins and sear on your Weber or chimney for about one minute per side flipping every 30 seconds. Myself, that’s a front or reverse sear over charcoal and a couple chunks of flavor wood steak.

[Starsky]

OK, I'm going to chime in here with a question. I've done the reverse sear method with fair results but when I crank the heat and do the sear the fat drips on to the fire and creates more of a black soot burn on the meat rather than a tasty sear. Suggestions?

[Joey877]

Sounds to me like you need a hotter fire. You will still have fat dripping, but it shouldn't leave soot on the meat. Or else flip the meat more often.

[jfmorris]

I would go with the Weber kettle on that bad boy, cooking indirect until it reaches about 115 to 118 internal temp. Then take the top off the kettle, open the bottom vent fully, and get the charcoal blazing hot - use a Slow 'N Sear if you have it to have the coals concentrated up close to the grate, and sear it until it reaches your desired IT, flipping every 30 seconds or so, checking it with an instant read about once per minute.

I used that process for two 1.5" porterhouses recently, and took the one for me to 135 IT, and the one for the wife to 145 IT, and they were some of the best steaks we have ever eaten.

I've tried sous vide and cast iron sears, and can cook with wood, charcoal and gas outside, and find a nice charcoal fire just gives me the best steak results.

Here's what I am talking about. In this case, I used the SNS Kamado, cooking the steaks indirect until about 118F, then put them on an elevated grate above the charcoal, which was concentrated in the SNS.

[tbob4]

That looks so tasty