You Can Successfully Reverse-Sear a 1-inch Porterhouse?

[RonB]

Very well done - wait - not well done, but ya know what I mean.

[fzxdoc]

Yup, I know. Thank you!

K.

[TripleB]

Nice job!! You're an inspiration to us Front Sear fanatics.

[fzxdoc]

Thank you! Turns out that I'm a equal-opportunity sear-ist. Sometimes front sear, sometimes reverse sear, sometimes sous vide and sear, I like them all.

Kathryn

[RichieB]

Wonderful cook. Done just right. And so glad your back at it.

[fzxdoc]

Thank you so much, Richie. It was fun to play with a kamado cook once again, although my PBC kept giving me the side-eye the whole time.

K.

[Rod]

That is almost exactly the way I do it. I rarely can find a steak that is over 1" thick. Comes out perfect every time. I usually use Carne Crosta or Cow Crust. After the slow part I coat lightly with Kerigold butter, apply the rub and throw it on my Genesis with the flat side of the GGs up. In fact, 3 of the 5 panels face up at all times for this very reason. I've never had any of the rubs burn either.

[fzxdoc]

Carne Crosta is one of the few rubs that doesn't burn when I sear, and I like that a lot. Haven't tried Cow Crust. I used to get the GG panels up to 700°+ for a sear but got tired of burning the rub or the pepper, even. That's when I backed the surface temp down a bit and started adding the rub after the first flip on the subsequent 3 flips. We like the flavor of rubs on our steaks sometimes. Other times we just go the salt route, adding pepper at the end.

Kathryn

[Rod]

I don't remember what temp my GGs get. I just fire up 2 of the 3 burners under the flat side on my Genesis to just over the medium setting. If I go too much higher than that, they will warp. Even GG state the cooking surface will be 100-200 degrees hotter for gas grills. So I'm sure two burners at just over medium is at least 500 on the surface.

[Draznnl]

Wow! Very impressive cooking. That steak looks scrumptious. Nice job Kathryn. Good to see you back at it.

[fzxdoc]

It's so good to be back! Thank you.

Kathryn

[DaveD]

Outstanding cook, and even better documentation! Such a pleasure to read, both for its concision and clarity and, even more importantly, seeing you back in the saddle after "life intervened in a big way." Between you and Richard and Allon and doubtless others of whom I don't even know, there is some pretty serious inspiration around here, before one even gets to the cooking.

Quick question: I see you using foil to position your grate probes, but do I also see grate clips on there too? What is, as the saying goes, up with that?

[fzxdoc]

Dave, thank you so much for your kindness.

The short foil strip adheres the ambient probe to the grate clip. This is because by the time I adjust the clip so that it is firmly held on the grate, the probe is not as firmly held in place in the clip's openings. A little tug will dislodge it. So I add a strip of aluminum foil to make sure it won't go anywhere should I inadvertently tug on the probe's wires during the cook.

Kathryn

[DaveD]

Got it, thanks!

[RichieB]

Me likey. Great idea.

[Old Glory]

Great cook! Looks amazing!

[fzxdoc]

Thanks. It was a Game Plan test with two steaks before I have to cook a big batch of them in a week or so. I'm sure the big batch results won't be as consistent, but the kids will eat them anyway.

K.

[Porkies]

*Droooooooool*

[fzxdoc]

Drooling is good. Thank you!

K.

[Bad Hat BBQ]

Congrats to you and Mr. Fancypants.....that is a good lookin' steak!

[fzxdoc]

Thanks. Mr. Fancypants was sure strutting his stuff that day. If I had thought ahead I would have tossed something else on it because it burned steadily for several hours more, even on that smallish load of KBB that I used, after I removed the steaks.

K.

[RolfTaylor]

Nice. I too like some smokieness and often have to settle for relatively thin steaks. So I have also been playing with reverse sear. I have been using the Combustion Inc Thermometer. I take them off at 15 degree before done (still working on this, 20 degree may be better). Since the initial cook is at a rather low temp they don't carryover cook by much. They actually sometimes drop a bit.

After taking them off I crank up my griddle in the propane grill with the top closed. Then I put them on and flip about every 45-60 seconds until they reach target temperature.

I still have some refining to do but this general technique is working well. Last week I did something similar with Salmon. It came out really moist.

[fzxdoc]

I keep eyeballing those Combustion Thermometers. Everyone who has one seems to like it.

For searing, I used to leave it on for 60 seconds for the first side's sear, then shorten to 30 second flips thereafter, but with the Grill Grate's flat side up at 600° or more on the surface, 60 seconds would often burn more than sear.

Like you, I'm still refining my searing technique for thinner reverse-seared steaks. This time turned out pretty well, though. Maybe it was pure luck.

K.

[RolfTaylor]

OK, to add to this interesting thread. This time I took the time to sear over charcoal versus griddle in my own ongoing experiments. And to answer Kathryn's initial question I would answer "you most definitely can" despite the fact there were strip steaks not ribeye.

Tonight I cooked 3 USDA choice traditional NY Strip steaks (bone in). These were thawed in the fridge for a couple of days.

I brought them up to nearly room temperature (saw an interesting video from Chris on the subject of cooking warm), removed from store cryo packs and dried them with paper towels. Sprinkled with a chicago steak blend (mostly just salt and pepper).

I started a charcoal fire in the egg. I have a grate that sits in the spider ring. That is high enough I need to pretty much fill the fire box with lump to get to within ~2 inches from coals to grate. There's room for a larger diameter grate, but I could not find anything bigger that was good quality.

I then started the old propane Weber Genesis. Long ago I added the wood chip box times 2. OS there is one on either side. I used about 2/3 mesquite and 1/3 pecan. I fired it up with all 3 burners on high until I started getting some smoke and then turned all 3 down to low. I have some ceramic spacers (I have all 3 sizes from Ceramic Grill Store) I use to keep the lid slightly open. Flipped once.

See graph. I put the steaks on at 18:430. They hit my 125 degree target in 10 minutes. I turned off first one burner and then a second. I now know (see orange graph) I should have turned off both sooner and I could have delayed reaching 125 longer, thereby getting more smoke flavor. Took them off at 18:40.



Carryover cooking brough me up to about 128 degrees. I let them sit as the coals in the egg greyed over. During the rest period the temp dropped to about 120.

Here's how they looked coming off the weber:


I put some pecan chips around the edge of the coals and put on my cast iron grate. Let that heat for just a couple of minutes and then seared, flipping every 45 seconds. After the first flip I sprinkled Kinder's Buttery Steakhouse seasoning on and again after the second (thank you Kathryn for the idea not to put it on before you have done the initial sear). I think I got to 3 flips and did a very short 4th.

I took it off at 134 and it carry-over cooked to 140. I prefer medium-rare, but it was tender and juicy so no complaints there. A bit more practice will help, but this reverse technique is well worth playing with.



Final results were honestly, the best steak I think I have ever cooked. Perhaps just a bit on the salty side (next time I will just use ground black pepper instead of the blend) for the initial cooking stage but really that's my only negative.

NOTES ON THE COMBUSTION THERMOMETER

Despite being technical, I have to say that all the people making graphs of there low and slow don't fascinate me. In fact I bought the base station (which also amplifies the WiFi signal from the probe) just so I could avoid using the app. However the instructions made it seem so easy to download the app, combined with that is how you upgrade the software in the probe and base station that I went and got it. And having the graph's definitely helped me learn a lot more from tonight's cook than I would have otherwise.

I wanted to like this product form the moment I first read about it. I did not pre-purchase, but watched carefully. And indeed I like it as much as I had hoped. Everything from the packaging, the shipping confirmation email (which gave pointers to prepare me for use once it arrived) and the units themselves are very well thought out. I am a former product manager and my family knows I am a constant critic of appliances and technology. I have ONE and ONLY one suggestion for Chris:

When the probe holder is connected to the charger, and the probe is not successfully connected the light turns green. This is the same indication as a full charge. I had this happen and the probe was dead despite the light being green. I put it back into the holder and it went to amber (turns out there was a bit of grime on the contact, now I make sure to clean the end). This could be a hardware, or possibly software.

Anyway I love the results and the learning curve.

[RolfTaylor]

Kathryn - I hope you don't think I am trying to hijack your thread! If so I can make this it's own.

[fzxdoc]

Are you kidding? Your post added so much to this topic! I don't think you and I are the only skinny-steak wranglers here in these parts; others may decide to jump on board too

K.

[fzxdoc]

Wow, what a nice steak cook you had, RolfTaylor . Congrats! Wasn't it fun to try to manipulate heat and smoke to get a tasty reverse-seared thin steak?

Did you get enough smoke flavor on your steaks to make you happy? That's a good idea about using 2 fireboxes in the gasser. I have one, and it burns through chips pretty darn quick with more smoke out than in the gasser. I sometimes add a Moe's Pouch that works with limited success. And I tried the Amaze-N tube in the gasser, again with limited success. I've also tried putting a couple of wood chunks on the Flavorizer bars, but am always concerned about them bursting into flame when I'm not looking because the gasser is such a windbag. Literally.

Thank you too, for writing your thoughts about the Combustion thermometer. I've been on the fence about getting the set, so am glad to hear that its performance looked good to your very discerning eye. MCS is breathing hard down my neck.

Kathryn

[RolfTaylor]

Fun indeed. My family has enjoyed my ongoing steak experiments.

I was happily surprised at the amount of smoke flavor I got given it was only 10 minutes. I attribute that mostly to the fact I used 2/3 mesquite which tends to be pretty strong smoke.

My old Genesis has the horixzontal burners (an arrangement that works well for the griddle BTW). On the left side (under the smoker box) is the crossover ignition tube which is like a mini burner and is on whenever the front burner is on. So the chips on that side burn faster. The Weber smoker box included a narrower grate.

I have to run the burners at high for 8-10 minutes before smoke gets going, then turn it way down to get low enough temp to do the slow cooking temperature. The graph does not include a "pit" temperature probe, but it does show the temperature immediately adjacent to the meat which is the red "ambient" graph. That peaked a bit higher than I wanted. I do have a pit thermometer for the egg (didn't need it for searing) but never use it in the Genesis, I have always used the built in thermometer. So I learned quite a bit about temperature control on this cook as well. I expected that turning off one burner would do the trick, but I should have turned off two of them sooner.

So the next batch I will aim to get 15 minutes before reaching my 125 degree cut off for the smoking stage.

Much better sear using the egg than the griddle for searing, but it depends if I want to bother. Now that summer is here I'll be using the egg for searing more, especially after the success.

I have got to do some low and slow soon. I need to figure out what I am diong this weekend and the 4th!

[Jerod Broussard]

I'm calling bologna on this, that steak looks 15/16" thick.

[RolfTaylor]

I confess! I am lucky to find 1" steaks!