Steaks How You Like ‘Em

Okay Steaks are the best, so fire up the grill, invite 100 or so close friends over, and eat until your teeth get tired.

If you like a very tender steaks, grill a filet mignon. Done right, you can practically cut it with a fork. If you like a little more texture, barbecue a T-Bone, New York, Rib Eye, or Porterhouse. And if you want a bit of a workout with great flavor, fix a flat iron or top sirloin.

You should know 4 important things about grilling steaks:

Bring the meat to room temperature before you put it on the grill. If you don’t, the outside will cook much faster than the cold inside, and you will get a dry exterior with a cold interior.

Use rubs without a high salt content. (GMG Beef Rub springs immediately to mind!) Copious quantities of salt tend to draw moisture out of the steak. Sugar will caramelize and add that great char on the surface.

Baste with butter or spritz with apple juice/Worcestershire mix. Or both!

Let the meat rest about 10 minutes after you’ve finished cooking. This will keep the flavorful juices inside the steak where they belong. Cut into one too early, and the juices will run all over the plate.

Technique: As a general rule, you should grill a high quality steaks on high heat (450-500°F; 232-260°C). A lower quality steaks will likely benefit from a slower cook (275-300°F; 135-177°C). Occasionally, if I have the time, I will cook a steak for an hour or so at 150°F (66°C) and then turn it up to 500°F to finish it off.

TIME: Grill about 7-10 minutes per side at high temperatures or 15-20 minutes per side at the lower temperatures mentioned above. The actual amount of time will depend on the thickness of the meat and your preference for doneness.

DONENESS – Use one of these methods:

Cut into the steak in the center. Rare meat will be red; medium rare will have a little red in the center turning to pink; medium will have some pink in the center; medium well will have a mostly gray or brown color.

Use the “touch test.” Rare will feel soft and only a little springy, with very little resistance. Medium rare will feel firm and springy, with some resistance against your finger. Medium/medium well will be firm and will snap back when pressed.

Use your meat probe. The USDA recommends that you cook steaks to a minimum interior temperature of 145°F (63°C). If you do so, your meat will be gray to brown and about as tender as a bicycle tire. The reality is that you risk getting sick from steaks cooked to lower interior temperatures. I enjoy rare steak enough to risk it, but you may not.