After experimenting in a variety of ways with my various grills/smokers I kind of backed into a cooking technique that I really like. I call it: "The Partially Frozen Technique". It works pretty much across the board for any grilled pieces of meat, but to simplify things I'll use steak for my example. What I like to do with steak is to take refrigerator-temperature steak and pop it in the freezer for a while before grilling. Duration of time will depend on the thickness of the meat. The goal here is to have to outer part of the meat kind of frozen but the center of the meat still pliable. This really is an expansion of the reverse-sear concept. Since the meat cooks from the outside it, if it's partially frozen on the outside by the time the interior reaches a temperature point where a reverse-sear will result in medium rare, the same will hold true closer to the surface. We all know about that infamous gray band of overcooked meat between the surface and the medium rare interior. The reverse-sear obviates some of that and "The Partially Frozen Technique" takes it even further.
In February 2018 I stumbled onto this technique but it took me over a year and a half to make the connection as to why this really thick cut piece of New York Strip came out so uniform. I cooked it in my 14.5 WSM (top grate, bowl removed, when it hit 110 internal I removed the centre ring and placed the cold grate on top of the fire ring and did a reverse sear) just outside of my garage. It was REALLY cold that evening - 15 degrees or so. I had the meat sitting on a platter and when I had to move the platter I noticed that the meat was starting to stick, so I flipped it over. By the time it was ready to go into the cooker I noticed the outer portion on both sides were partially frozen. It wasn't until over a year later, when similar attempts to achieve this degree of uniformity throughout the meat weren't as successful that I had my "Eureka" moment.
Look at how uniformly this NY strip is cooked:
In February 2018 I stumbled onto this technique but it took me over a year and a half to make the connection as to why this really thick cut piece of New York Strip came out so uniform. I cooked it in my 14.5 WSM (top grate, bowl removed, when it hit 110 internal I removed the centre ring and placed the cold grate on top of the fire ring and did a reverse sear) just outside of my garage. It was REALLY cold that evening - 15 degrees or so. I had the meat sitting on a platter and when I had to move the platter I noticed that the meat was starting to stick, so I flipped it over. By the time it was ready to go into the cooker I noticed the outer portion on both sides were partially frozen. It wasn't until over a year later, when similar attempts to achieve this degree of uniformity throughout the meat weren't as successful that I had my "Eureka" moment.
Look at how uniformly this NY strip is cooked:
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