Cooking 16 Filet Mignon on Saturday

[JoeSousa]

This coming Saturday I will be cooking a nice steak dinner for 16 people. I don't usually cook filet mignon for something like this but since I will only have one grill to work with (a Weber kettle I gifted to a friend) I figured they would be the easiest to fit on one grill.

Costco had a couple nice looking prime tenderloins so I plan on cutting the steaks out of that. Shooting for 6-8 ozs per steak. Plus there should be some ends and other pieces left over for me the next day.

I toyed with the idea of sous vide and then searing or even confit them in butter beforehand (had steaks cooked like that in Vegas once). But I wanted to make this as simple as possible. Timing-wise I also didn't want to reverse sear since the timing on that can be a bit wonky when dinner is to be served at a specific time.

So for this cook I will just be grilling over direct heat. Of course since it is tenderloin I will be shooting for nothing above medium rare and will go for ~125 internal. Figured just some direct heat cooking with regular flipping will be the best way to go for this. Unless any of you have another brilliant technique I am not thinking about.

Wish me luck that I don't destroy $400 worth of meat!!!

[RichieB]

Wow, that's a lot of beef. My only comment is flipping 16 and being able to manage their doneness. I would do 4 at a time and place in a faux cambro. They'll be done quickly direct with a hot fire

[jlazar]

Agree, or set up zones of heat assuming you are going to have to have varying degrees of doneness for different folks. Matching final IT to desired doneness might be easier than you think if you cook a range of temps.

[DaveD]

I would not even think of trying this unless using the sous vide... so so much easier to get them just right that way, when all you need is that minute per side or whatever for each and every steak, treat them just the same, nothing to keep track of. Having them done via SV and then putting them in your cambro equivalent to keep them warm seems like an acceptable level of futz to have a nearly foolproof method of nailing a very challenging cook. But atsa just me! Whatever you do, best of luck, hope it's epic!

[TripleB]

I would do SV too. You're at the same internal temp starting point for all steaks. Get the order on how they like them and then start searing the well done steaks first and then add as you move towards rare. Should all be done roughly at the same time. Also, Fillets have little fat, so there is no real rendering. That is my biggest complaint with SV. The fat is not rendered very well.

[Huskee]

Nah, no prob you got this. Two rows of 8 steaks, it's really not that bad. Pretend they're burgers. Flippity dippity do dah and off to the races.

[RichieB]

Flippity dippity do dah and off to the races. I'm going to use this every time I'm flipping something.

[itsnotmyfault]

Totally agree. Just don't cut them super thick to make your life easier. My mouth is watering now!

[fzxdoc]

Every time I see your avatar, I crack up.

K.

[captainlee]

Do your best to cut them the same size/ thickness. I know the tenderloin isn't uniform in size. I flip constantly like every minute. Maybe a cooler zone on one end to move those smaller ones to.

[Oak Smoke]

I know I go at things a bit backward at times but I would be tempted to grill the whole tenderloin then cut into steaks. Another tip is that any leftovers are wonderful sliced thin and eaten cold. In one of my favorite cook books on cowboy cooking it talks about grilled tenderloin being better cold than hot.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

I'd personally trim off the thinnest end, smoke or cook low and slow the whole thing to medium rare and then slice into steaks. I'd have something going hot for a quick flip flip sear and anyone wanting more than med rare you could address easier at that point?

[shify]

Being you are getting a whole tenderloin, I’d be inclined to leave as whole as possible for the cook. Almost like a larger version of a chateaubriand.
You can either slice and sear each steak or just sear the roast and slice to serve like a prime rib.

if you do want to cut and cook individual steaks I think you should reconsider reserve sear. A 6-8 oz filet will not take very long to cook even via reverse sear and it’s not like you have a 2 hr window when it’ll be done.

the reverse sear will give you greater margin of error vs trying to manage 16 steaks over a direct sear. You can also cook to 125, remove from the grill and let rest for ~30 min or so before searing.

[barelfly]

Have fun with the cook! And have someone snap a pic of 16 filet on that kettle!!!

[JCBBQ]

Sous vide and sear IS the way to go. You get a perfect cook. Flexible timing. Zero stress bc all your doing on the grill is getting color.

[WI Bubba]

If I was doing this I would sear them all over very high heat working in batches of 8. The object is not to get them fully cooked, just put a nice sear on them. Then I would bag them up and toss them in the sous vide to finish cooking to my desired temp. This could be done well in advance and eliminate any timing issues. These kinds of cooks are what the sous vide excels at.

Or as was suggested, cook the tenderloin whole. The only down side I see to doing it whole is that you greatly reduce the surface area and end up with less tasty seared surface. But you do gain the wow factor of cutting steaks tableside.

Just before serving sprinkle them with some of Hanks Steak seasoning. Henrik made what is, in my opinion, the best steak seasoning I have ever used. Sadly they are no longer available for purchase, but you can find the recipe here.

[Henrik]

Solid advice, and really cool to hear you enjoy my steak seasoning! It’s wonderful with beef me thinks.

[drobinson]

Sous vide would require a very large container which most folks don't have. If your kettle is a 22" you have no worries: use sns, bring up to 110* on cool side and then sear over hot side. E Z P Z. Good luck and enjoy!!

[fracmeister]

I have done 14 new york strips once, 12 mr and 2 m+ and sous vie and sear was great. I could do about 4 at a time so I just did them the day before (lightly salting before getting sealed). my routine when i take them out is leave them at room temp 10 minutes, 1 minutes in cold water then 10 minutes in salted ice bath. this also allowed me to take two of the poor steaks to 140 for the heathens. not sure why I converted as I used to straight to an ice bath but this works. then to the fridge and when time I take them all out, dry them, light ghee rub and my steak mix (salt pepper and just a a few spices you could probably guess) and I go out on the weber and sear a few at a time eal well leaving the rest over indirect to wamr up inside. thee were like 1.5" so they wamred up pretty quickly.

YMMV

[efranzen]

You may also want to consider cutting some thinner ones for some of the 16 that might not want a thick red hunk of goodness.
You could also smoke and reverse sear the whole tenderloins and then cut into steaks after.

[Henrik]

I’m a fan of cooking it whole, with the thin end folded back and trussed for more even thickness. Even so, one end is thicker than the other so it’s easy to serve those who want more well cooked from the thin end, and so on.

But SV would also work. Not something I’ve ever done though, so can’t add any advice on that.